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MDCCCLXXXII. 



CONTENTS, 


OHAPTEB PAGH 

L For His Daughter 9 

n. The Forbidden Path 18 

HI. The Omen 24 

ly. A Bouquet of Jessamines 38 

y. Her First yisit 48 

yi. La Belle Samaritaine 59 

yn. Dead as Pharaoh 69 

yilL His Discovery 79 

IX. Her Coming 90 

X. Mi-Cargme 99 

XI. Set Right 108 

Xn. Three-and-Thirty 116 

Xin. She Accused Herself 126 

Xiy. The Arabic Lessons 136 

Xy. Announced — “Miss Danvers” 143 

Xyi. From America 148 

Xyil. Giulia’s Greek 156 

Xyill. An Unwelcome Confidence 165 

XIX. Diogenes’s Advice 180 

XX. A Girl’s Troubles 191 

XXI. Before the Pope’s Portrait 202 

XXII. A Bold Stroke 212 

XXIII. In the Studio 222 

XXiy. Like Jonah’s Gourd... 229 


viii CONTENTS, . 

OHAPTEB PAGE 

XXV. Mary’s Resolve 239 

XXVL The End of Our Romance ” 246 

XXVn. Against Fate 259 

XXVIII. She Said Good-By” 272 

XXIX. A Morning Ride 278 

XXX. Two Notes 287. 

XXXI. An Unpleasant Mission 297 

xxxn. Gone! 305 

XXXin. Christened Circe 316 

XXXIV. In the Sorceress’s Toils 324 

XXXV. Each Blunders 333 

XXXVI. Her Last Effort 340 

XXXVIL Still Her Work 349 

XXXVHI. For Whom He was to Die 361 

XXXIX. Once Too Often 368 

XL. The Story Told 377 

XLI. When Dawn Broke 388 

XLIL After All 400 


CHAPTER I. 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 

HE Amaldi Palace stands in a small square, not 
far from the beautiful old church of Santa Maria 
Novella, fills up nearly one side of the piazza, and 
is stately enough to be noticeable, rich as Flor- 
ence is in picturesque and storied edifices. 

There are three or four courts, and the vast pile has 
numerous occupants ; but one quadrangle, with its separate 
entrance, belongs to Violet Cameron. She has not, however, 
asserted her claims to proprietorship by giving her portion 
of the mansion a new name ; and therein, I think, has shown 
wisdom. Nowadays, in Florence and Rome, the traveler 
not unfrequently finds historical dwellings, which have been 
re-christened under the Anglo-Saxon cognomens of their 
present owners ; but I cannot persuade myself that Palazzo 
Sankey and Villino Jenkinson sound as well as their original 
Italian titles. 

In the beginning of October, 187-, Miss Cameron 
returned to Florence, after more than a year’s absence, in- 
tending to spend the rest of the autumn, and perhaps the 
whole winter, unless it should prove one of those hopelessly 
rainy seasons, which the variable Tuscan climate will occa- 
sionally disgrace itself by adopting and clinging to for 
several consecutive months. 

At an early hour on the morning after her arrival she 
was seated in her dressing-room — a pretty nook, with its 
walls paneled in blue silk, the windows hung with blue 
1* [9] 



10 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 


and white draperies, and the easy-chairs and couches covered 
with the faintest possible tint of azure velvet. A door 
stood open, and showed a boudoir, rich and quaint as a 
cinque-cento casket ; beyond, other open doors gave glimpses 
of a long suite of apartments, which were the envy of half 
her acquaintance, though to attempt a description of the 
various chambers, with their treasures of art and virtu, 
would only make this page sound like an auction catalogue. 

Miss Cameron had drunk her cojffee, and was indulging in 
the luxury of complete idleness, looking her best, too, in an 
undress which would have been very trying to many women 
— a gown of some dead white woolen stuff, loosely confined 
about the waist by a broad ribbon, and her hair (dark 
auburn, with golden reflections upon it) brushed back 
from her forehead, and falling in heavy masses over her 
shoulders. Even in that severely simple toilet and the 
^ rigid truthfulness of the morning light, six-and-twenty was 
the most a close observer would have assigned as her age ; 
but Violet Cameron had counted three years beyond thirty, 
and reached the era at which her sex, as a rule, is forced to 
relinquish all claims to appearing youthful. I think it was 
the indescribable softness and purit}?' of her complexion 
which kept her- face so young; and even feminine critics 
never tried to hint that the delicate bloom in her cheeks, 
like the color in the heart of a wild rose, was not natural. 

Women did say her eyes were green, and, I believe, 
rightly ; but they were nevertheless wonderfully beautiful 
eyes, which gained added depth from the blackness of the 
arched brows, and the lashes so long and thick as to cast 
that peculiar shadow which less fortunate women are 
obliged to supply by factitious aids. 

She was too small to be called handsome ; the features * 
were too irregular for perfect beauty ; and her grace and 
supreme elegance (that highest and most indefinable charm) 
rendered the term pretty inapplicable. She seemed to have 
caught certain characteristics of each of the three types, 
and Nature had managed the combination with siicii skill 
that the result was a loveliness as unique as it was indis- 
putable. 

Three-and-thirty years of age, and unmarried. So I 
must call her my elderly heroine, though, in the presence 
of her radiant fairness, the epithet would have become a 
positively ludicrous misnomer. 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 


11 


Miss Cameron’s meditations were interrupted by the 
opening of a door ; steps crossed the boudoir ; and a thin, 
faded voice, which one would have sworn belonged to an 
ancient spinster, called, quaveringly : 

“ Good-morning, dear ! May I come in ? Excuse this 
early visit. Clarice said you were up, and I wanted — but 

it is a shame to disturb you ” 

Pray come in !” Miss Cameron said, as the unseen 
speaker’s sentence trailed off into a sigh. ‘‘ I may be un- 
entertaining, but I am not dangerous, I give you iny^ 
word.” 

^\\Q portUre was pushed farther back by a hand which 
suited the voice — long, bony, and uncertain in its move- 
ments; but it was not until Miss Cameron repeated her in- 
vitation that their owner appeared. She gave the effect of 
unusual height, from the fact that each separate part — 
neck, waist, and limbs — seemed unduly elongated; and she 
was so thin that apparently only skin and bones had been 
left after that drawing-out process. 

Fifty-five at least; tiny wrinkles, like cracks in yellow 
porcelain ; straggling cork-screw curls ; a perpeturU smile ; a 
habit of carrying her head on one side — of breaking her 
sentences with inexpressibly irritating little gasps — these 
were Miss Bronson’s chief characteristics, whereto I may 
add a morbid taste in the matter of faded pink bows, which 
she had a mania for pinning on every available spot, from 
the crown of her liead to the toes of her slippers. 

Good morning, Eliza,” said Miss Cameron. ‘‘I hope 
you have slept off the fatigues of tlie journey.” 

‘‘ Oh, perfectly ! And how fresh you look !” with a 
sigh so much deeper than ordinary, that Miss Cameron 
added : 

“ What have you got on your -soul or your conscience ? 
Something troubles you, I know\ Your voice is more 
Eolian-harp-like than usual.” 

“My love, I am in a state of such painful uncertainty!” 

“ My love, people say that is the normal state of all^ us 
spinsters. But sit down and reveal your woes. I don’t ask 
you to weep on my sympathetic bosom, but I will do any- 
thing short of drying tears to show my tender interest,” 
said Miss Cameron, laughingly. 

Miss Bronson seated herself, slipped from her arm into 
her lap a canvas reticule worked with worsted flowers of 


12 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 


such discordant hues that they gave her friend a sensation 
like incipient sea-sickness, and shook her head pensively. 

“ Are you carrying your trouble in that preposterous 
bag ?” Miss Cameron asked. “ It is ugly enough to hold 
all the ills of Pandora’s box, though Hope would die in dis- 
gust if shut up there.” 

“ I declare, ray dear, you are as witty as a play ; but I 
don’t know — is it now — at least among foreigners ” 

“ What, in the name of goodness ?” 

Exactly the thing to talk so differently from every- 
body else,” sighed Miss Bronson. “ Please don’t be 
offended at my mentioning it, but several times people 
have said to me, they should know you were an American 
just by your conversation.” 

“ I hope so ! I don’t propose to cultivate stupidity for 
the sake of being supposed a native of some other country. 
Perhaps, too, I talk through' my nose.” 

, ‘‘ Oh no ! You have nothing of the nasal intonation.” 

“ Do say twang, Eliza! We are not school-mistresses 
any longer, and there is no necessity for using long words,” 
said Miss Cameron, laughing outright. 

“I wish you would not speak so often of having been a 
schoolmistress,” expostulated Miss Bronson ; “ it does not 
matter for me, but with your wealth and beauty ” 

‘‘My dear, the wealth gives me the privilege of saying 
tvhat I please ! I am proud of having been a school- 
ma’am ! Why, I should be heartily ashamed. of myself if 
I had always led as useless a life as I do now ! I am very 
doubtful whether fate did me any kindness in putting an 
end to ray drudgery. Good heavens ! ten years gone since 
then — and I meant to have done so much ! And here I am 
thirty-three, and have accomplished literally nothing !” 

“ You know what French people say — ‘ that a woman 
in reality has only the age she looks,’ ” said Eliza, glancing 
in the mirror as if to determine how many years this privi- 
lege would take off her own record. 

“ French people have talked nonsense in regard to 
women since the foundation of the Gallic empire ” (“ Er- 
roneously declared by many authors to have begun with 
Charlemagne,” parenthesized Miss Bronson), “ and will 
continue to do so until the day of Judgment, whenever 
they began,” pursued Miss Cameron. “ But never mind 


FOB ms DAUGHTEB, 


13 


my age, or the follies of the Gauls : what secret have you 
got shut up there?” 

At this reminder of her errand, the spinster made a 
sudden nervous movement which sent several sealed en- 
velopes flying out of the reticule. 

“ Ugh ! I was right to compare the thing to Pandora’s 
box !” shivered Miss Cameron. She stooped to pick up two 
of the epistles which had fluttered close to her chair, 
adding, in the playfully teasing way whereby she often 
perplexed poor Eliza : ‘‘ They are for me ! Why were you 
hiding my correspondence in your sack ? If you mean to 
turn postman I shall buy you a uniform.” 

“ Oh — oh ! don’t look — wait till I explain !” cried the 
antique virgin despairingly, as her friend was about to open 
the envelopes. “ Please don’t look !” 

Miss Cameron laid the missives down and watched the 
spinster execute a kind of weird waltz, which was rather 
like a caricature of Dinorah’s Shadow-dance. 

This is exceedingly mysterious,” she said ; ‘‘ even awe- 
inspiring !” 

‘‘My dear,” continued Miss Bronson, as soon as she 
reached the speaking stage of her eccentric exercise, “I have 
a message which is, so to speak, a key to the whole matter.” 

“ Then pray give me the key, else I shall force the lock,” 
returned Miss Cameron, with a glance towards, the letters, 
which caused Eliza to dance anew. 

“ One moment — I wanted to break it- ” 

“I hate broken news as I do broken china,” interrupted 
Miss Cameron. “ Pray give it to me entire, whatever it may 
be. If it comes in fragments it will be sure to excoriate my 
temper, ju§t as broken china would my fingers.” 

“You make me laugh so ! He ! he ! ha ! ha !” And, as 
a proof that her merriment was heart-felt. Miss Bronson 
began to cry. 

Any person unaccustomed to the spinster’s vagaries would 
either have been alarmed or ready to shake her from sheer 
impatience, but experience had taught Miss Cameron that 
emotion of any sort in the presence of Eliza’s small agita- 
tions was usually emotion wasted, for, as a rule, the slighter^ 
the cause, the more force she put into her demonstrations. 
So now her friend only said, composedly: 

“ You will tell me when you can.” 

“ Yes — I — wanted to break — ” sobbed Eliza ; then gave 


14 


FOR HIti DAUGHTER. 


a great gulp and burst out, Your cousin George Danvers 
is dead.” 

Miss Cameron changed color, put her hand over her 
eyes, and remained silent for a few seconds, during which 
Eliza sat choking behind her pocket-handkerchief, and by 
the time she emerged from its depths Miss Cameron had 
resumed her former attitude. 

‘‘ He died to me so many years since that I cannot pre- 
tend to be deeply affected,” she said, in a voice which was 
awed rather than saddened. “ If he can see me — or cares 
to see — he is certain that I have no hard feeling towai-ds 
him. Once I thought I could never say this, but I can now, 
freely.” 

“ Oh, my dear, that is like you ! But only think — he 
had lost his fortune — every penny. His daughter is left 
absolutely destitute.” 

“ Do you know, I had forgotten he had a daughter,” 
returned Miss Cameron, with a little wonder in her tone. 

That shows me how completely I had put him and his out 
of my mind ! Yes, he had a daughter — she mubt be 
eighteen. His wife died ?” 

“To be sure ; and he married again. It seems the poor 
girl and her stepmother are not good friends — oh ! his 
letter is heart-breaking !” 

“ He wrote to you ?” 

“ And to you,” said Eliza, pointing towards the epistles 
on the table. “ Only think ! they have been lying here 
more than a month ; and oh, he does so plead — it would 
soften a stone ! The wife can go to her relations — but the 
unfortunate girl will not be received by them ” 

“I think the quickest w^ay to make me understand the 
whole matter wnll be to let me read the explanations,” 
Miss Cameron interrupted, wdth a mildness which spoke 
volumes for her powders of self-restraint. “ Give me your 
letter first, please.” 

Eliza declared that she had already done so, and was as- 
tounded when accused of guarding it still in her Pandora’s 
box. She handed out a packet of cough lozenges, then a 
roll of knitting, then a receipted hotel-bill — insisting wildly 
that each article in turn w^as the required epistle, and weep- 
ing bitterly all the w’hile. Finally, Miss Cameron took 
possession of the bag and turned its multifarious contents 
upon the table. Eliza shrieked over the confusion her 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER, 


15 


friend was making, but Miss Cameron did not heed her 
distress. She found the document at length, and said : 

‘‘You can pick up the things while I am reading. 
Please don’t speak to me till I have finished ; I am so dull 
that I can only attend to one thing at a time which was 
as near a reproof as she ever went in her dealings with his 
sometimes troublesome daughter of Vesta. 

Eliza began collecting her treasures, and Miss Cameron 
read the letter through, then observed calmly : 

“ What a miserable opinion the poor man had of human 
nature up to the very last, since he thought it necessary to 
write you this piteous appeal to try and touch my hard 
heart.” 

“ Oh, my dear, he felt he had wronged you so ter- 
ribly !” 

“ And he supposed I would be unforgiving. It was 
natural, no doubt, for him to fear that, since in my case he 
would have been ” 

“But the poor girl ? And he is gone where ” 

Miss Cameron held up her hand and finished the sen 
tence thus : 

“ Where the things of this world must look very unim- 
portant, since they do so to us ten years after their hap- 
pening, however weighty they seemed at the time.” 

Miss Bronson feared that the assertion sounded sadly 
unorthodox, and went out of the room in silence; partly be- 
cause she perceived it would be cruel to inflict further com- 
panionship on Violet, partly to meditate over this speech, 
and prepare herself to convict her friend, in case conscience 
and certain old Calvinistic writers, in whose gloomy 
polemics she had a faith which we will hope is rare in our 
day, should decide that the sentiment savored of heresy. 

Miss Cameron examined her letters, opening first the 
epistle from George Danvers — the utterance of a dying 
man; and, as such, according to the creeds in which we 
have all been reared, a communication to be received with 
solemn respect. 

An odd thought crossed Violet Cameron’s mind as she 
read — one which others of us have had under similar cir- 
cumstances, and been startled thereby, because so utterly 
opposed to our theories — namely, why, because the man 
was dying, should any particular weight attach to his re- 
quest ? 


16 


FOR Hia DAUGHTER, 


Fathers, on their death-beds, ask pledges of their chil- 
dren, which must fetter those children for years; husbands 
beg wives never to marry; wives entreat husbands not to 
wed some particular woman. Having received the desired 
promises, the departing spirits go tranquilly out of the 
world — go away, we believe, to an existence fuller of frui- 
tion than this, to a happiness of which happiness here can 
give no conception — certainly not regretting the friends 
they have left, else they could not find peace even in 
heaven — living new lives, untrammeled by any duty to their 
mourners on earth, who are considered worse than heathens 
if they fail to obey every wish of the dead, however un- 
reasonable, however difficult, or, indeed, impracticable, the 
changes of this mortal sphere may render such obedience. 
Violet indulged this reflection ; then was a little shocked ; 
then thought herself silly for being so. But George Dan- 
vers had asked nothing which she deemed unreasonable or 
shrank from granting. 

Miss Cameron’s widowed father had died soon after 
her seventeenth birthday. George Danvers settled his 
estate. The orphan was declared penniless, but the execu- 
tor speedily became wealthy. A few people suspected him 
of cheating. Violet felt assured of his guilt ; for her 
father, during his brief illness, had shown her that the 
property he left (consisting of large coal and iron mines), 
though involved, would afford her an ample income, if 
matters were honestly and wisely conductedv 

She had refused to become a pensioner on her relative’s 
bounty, and had told him her certainty that he was a rob- 
ber. He had grossly defrauded — he admitted this in his 
letter — but he had always meant to right her when he 
should grow rich enough ! Now death stood near ; a sud- 
den financial crisis had ruined him ; and in all the world 
there was no human being to whom he could appeal in his 
daughter’s behalf, save to the cousin whom he had so deep- 
ly wronged. 

The stepmother wrote, just after her husband’s death, 
a letter full of complaints and self-commiseration. Her 
own fortune had been swallowed up, and she could not ask 
her relations to burden themselves with the care of a girl 
who, ever since her father’s second marriage — an event 
which had occurred some six years previous — had plainly 


FOR HIS DAUGHTER. 


17 


fihown that she considered his new wife and her connections 
interlopers and foes. 

The third letter was from the orphan, Mary Danvers, 
written still later — girlish, highflown, but not a bad letter 
by any means — its whole tenor proving her ignorance of 
the causes which had separated the cousins for so many 
years. 

Miss Cameron recollected that, owing to the long delay, 
the poor child might have suffered torments worse than 
those of purgatory ; at least, no more time should be lost. 
She prepared a telegram for her lawyer in New York, tell- 
ing him how and where to communicate with Mary Danvers, 
and promising letters by the next steamer ; though, if any 
suitable escort offered before their arrival, the young lady 
might start on her voyage. This done she wrote to him 
and to George’s daughter ; and, as she finished, Eliza 
Bronson appeared again, with her eyes and nose in a pitiable 
state, and her doubts in regard to Miss Cameron’s heresy 
still unsettled. 

‘‘ Read these, Eliza,” said Violet, holding out the epis- 
tles. 

The spinster slowly perused the two, and exclaimed : 

Really, dear, you are almost an angel, if only you 
wouldn’t give in to foreign carelessness about spending 
Sunday !” 

‘‘ Please have the dispatch sent at once, and the letters 
put in the post,” said Miss Cameron. ‘‘And just call 
Clarice. I shall go for a ride. The air will do me good.” 

“Yes,” Miss Bronson assented ; but her tone and man- 
ner showed that she still had a weight on her mind, and 
desi.’ed to be questioned. 

“ What is it ?” Miss Cameron asked, resignedly. 

“ About — about mourning. Shall you put on black ?” 

“ No,” Miss Cameron replied, without hesitation. 

“ My dear, that will look so odd ! Everybody does it 
for a few weeks — say six, if not a very near relative.” 

“ George Danvers has already been dead almost two 
months,” said Miss Cameron. “ To go into black now 
would only be exposing myself to hear and answer the 
same question forty times each day for the next fort- 
night.” 

“ Yes, but custom, my dear — custom !” 


18 


TEE FORBIDDEN PATH, 


‘‘ Since people do not know wbat has happened, their 
prejudices cannot be shocked.” 

“ Very well !” sighed Miss Bronson. 

“ Eliza,” said her friend, coldly, when my father died, 
I was so poor that I could not buy mourning. Do you 
think it fitting I should adopt it for his — for George 
Danvers ?” 

“ I — I — perhaps not,” murmured the spinster. 

Miss Cameron went .into her bedroom. By the time 
Eliza had reached the boudoir, she called : 

I dare say you are right ! I will wear white and 
lavender and gray for a few weeks. Now I hope your con- 
science is at rest.” 

Miss Bronson wept again, and retired, so satisfied in 
every particular, that she could not have been more com- 
placent had they just heard of a wedding instead of a 
death. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE FORBIDDEN* PATH. 

TSS CAMERON mounted her horse and rode off 
into the Cascine, finding the lovely wood de- 
serted, as it usually is, save for an hour or two 
before sunset. 

Away to the right, Fiesole and its range of 
blue hills, glorious with sunshine, shut in the view ; on the 
left, through the aisles of trees, Violet caught glimpses of 
the Arno and the plain beyond. A low breeze sang among 
the branches like a harp accompaniment to the songs of the 
birds — the sky was a vast dome of turquoise, flecked here 
and there with opal clouds — and, in spite of her grave pre- 
ocoapation, the beauty of the scene did not escape Miss 
Cameron’s eyes. She loved nature, as she did everything 
else beautiful, with a genuine love, and Italy possessed for 
her that peculiar attraction which it must have for all im- 
aginative people. She was given to day-dreams, which, 
had she transcribed them, might have made her known as a 
poet ; but she never thought of doing this — ^they were her 



19 


THE FORBIDDEN PATH ‘ 

chief treasures, which she liked to keep sacred between 
herself and her soul. She had learned to guard her secret 
when in girlhood life suddenly assumed an aspect so bald 
and commonplace that she fostered this visionary faculty 
in order to forget now and then the coldness and closeness 
of existence. A governess inclined to dreams would be a 
lusus naturce intolerable to parents or the wise heads of 
scholastic institutions, and Violet’s fancies were not allowed 
to interfere with the conscientious fulfillment of her duties. 

In the early days she had been forced to struggle hard 
for patience — had felt like a caged bird — as if she must die 
if relief did not come. But by degrees she conquered that 
restlessness, gradually grew accustomed to the routine and 
restraint, and, if not happy, perhaps as nearly reached con- 
tentment as youth often does. 

Violet did not remember her mother ; when she was a 
little child Miss Bronson had been selected for her gov- 
erness, who, if not a woman of powerful intellect, was at 
least well-informed, prudent, and loved her charge most 
tenderly. 

When orphanage and poverty overtook Violet, Miss 
Bronson would gladly have toiled for and supported her, 
but this the girl would not permit, so Eliza obtained situa- 
tions for both in a boarding-school where she had herself 
been educated. Violet, at first received as a pupil-teacher, 
rose rapidly in rank till, before her season of toil ended, 
she stood next to the stately lady who ruled in those halls 
of Minerva, and the destiny to which my heroine had 
looked forward was of one day becoming mistress of the 
establishment. 

The change to her present position had arrived as unex- 
pectedly as the tempest which at her father’s death flung 
her from luxury into want — it possessed, too, a certain halo 
of romance. 

During a summer vacation she accompanied one of the 
scholars to her home, and there formed the acquaintance of 
a gentleman who had known her parents. Mr. Goring was 
no longer young — a widower, and standing very much alone 
in the world. He fell in love with the beautiful gov- 
erness, and her friends thought her insane to decline his 
hand. Reason and common-sense urged her to accept, but, 
at the end of the six months’ probation he had begged, she 
definitely refused his offer. It was hard to cast aside the 


20 


THE FORBIDDEN PATH 


future which showed so bright in contrast to her surround- 
ings — harder to give him pain, for his whole heart centered 
in his plea. But, to her mind, a marriage unsanctified by 
love — love so strong that it could work miracles — became 
a bartering of body and soul, from which she recoiled with 
unutterable loathing. Other women, feeling the respect 
and esteem which she felt, might have accepted — been right 
in so doing : to her it was simply impossible. 

Eighteen months later Mr. Goring died in Brazil, and, 
with the exception of legacies to his dead wife’s relatives — 
he had none of his own — bequeathed his vast fortune to 
Violet Cameron. There would be nothing specially inter- 
esting in the records of the ensuing decade, looking back 
from which the old workaday epoch seemed strangely un- 
real. It had passed as it might have been expected to do 
with a woman rich, beautiful, and unmarried — save in one 
particular : nothing like love had touched her heart — not 
so much as a brief fancy which she could weave an idyl 
over. She had lived in the world, been surrounded by ad- 
mirers ; but no voice from any man’s soul had possessed 
power to waken a response in hers. 

Even women never thought of setting her down any- 
where near her age ; if she told it to some confidant she 
was not believed, and Eliza Bronson, exaggeratedly scrupu- 
lous in general, burdened her conscience with many pre- 
varications to prevent such possibility. 

That she had gone so many years beyond all claim to 
girlhood appeared inconceivable to Violet herself, even 
when she laughingly adopted the title of old maid. She 
was as young in her feelings as her face — naturally enough, 
too, since love, life’s profoundest mystery, remained only a 
name and a dream. 

Violet rode on more and more rapidly, trying to forget 
the hosts of perplexed, inexplicable fancies Avhich beset 
her, following in the wake of the recollections roused by 
George Danvers’s letter. She turned her horse so abruptly 
down one of the side alleys that she nearly exterminated a 
gentleman who had just emerged into it from the recesses 
of the wood. 

They caught sight of each other at the same instant. 
The gentleman sprang aside, and Miss Cameron reined in 
her steed so suddenly that she sent him back on his 
haunches. She received a somewhat reproachful glance 


TEE FORBIDDEN PATH. 


21 


from the stranger, then Selim engaged her attention, for, 
offended at the unexpected and vigorous check, he began 
to stand on his hind legs and perform antics more like 
those of a trained horse in a circus than was agreeable to 
his rider. 

Her narrowly-escaped victim stood watching the ex- 
hibition, no doubt with the intention of coining to her aid 
if assistance should prove necessary ; but in a very few 
seconds she convinced Selim that wisdom would dictate a 
return to his duty and the legitimate use of his limbs. 
Violet was about to speak some words of apology and 
hurry on, when she dropped her whip, which the gentleman 
picked up, and she, sufficiently vexed with herself and 
Selim to be unreasonable, hastily decided that even the 
ceremonious lifting of the stranger’s hat conveyed a fresh 
reproach. 

Of course she could do no less than offer her thanks, 
and, as she looked full at him, she perceived her blunder ; 
the dullest woman living could not have mistaken the 
expression in his face for anything save wondering and 
respectful admiration. Still she could not resist saying : 

‘‘ I must beg your pardon. I ought not to have ridden 
so fast round the corner ; but it is very unsafe for any per 
son to walk in these alleys, meant only for equestrians.” 

He smiled slightly, still he did smile, and evidently in 
amusement at her neatly-combined apology and reproof. 

“ The next turning is the one the signora should have 
taken,” he said, with a bow. As he spoke he pointed to a 
signboard at the side of the road, and Violet read thereon, 
printed in very legible characters and in two languages, 
“ Peri pedoni — for foot-passengers.” 

“ It seems I was in the wrong every way. Pardon 
again,” she said ; and, to make matters worse, she felt her- 
self coloring like a school-girl. 

Her groom rode up at this juncture, and repeated the 
announcement that his mistress had strayed into forbidden 
paths ; but Violet urged Selim on, and the groom was 
obliged to follow, and her haste lost her the slight satisfac- 
tion of hearing that the guardians of the wood might bear 
a portion of the blame for removing the bar which ought 
to have obstructed the route. The gentleman went his 
way and Miss Cameron went hers — or the way not hers by 


THE FOBBIDDEN PATH 


2 % 

right — and of course both took with them some thought of 
the brief encounter. 

Violet had spoken in Italian, and the stranger had 
replied in the same tongue, but her trained ear caught a 
foreign accent. 

‘ “ Not English, however,” was her reflection. ‘‘ He 

looked like some of those handsome men one sees in 
Athens. No doubt he is a Greek — a worthless race as a 
rule ; and I would wager anything he is no exception.” 

As for the gentleman, his meditations, conducted in the 
same language as her own, ran somewhat in this fashion : 

What a superb creature ! However, I dare say she 
never looked so well before and never will again ! Difii- 
cult to make that woman turn back, whatever path she had 
started on. How old ? Not a young miss, certainly — five- 
and-twenty perhaps. How vexed she tried to be with me 
just because herself in the wrong ! However, it was like a 
woman — like anything human, for that matter, though we 
men always pretend to think such little errors are monop- 
olized by the softer sex.” 

Miss Cameron reached home for the twelve-o’clock 
breakfast, and found a note from a friend awaiting her. 

‘‘You dearest, wickedest, most delightful of creatures ! — 
'Carlo heard last night of your arrival. If you meant to let 
the day pass without sending me word, don’t admit the fact, 
else I never, never will forgive you ! We are out at the 
villa. I am literally tied fast by the foot, or ankle, which I 
managed to sprain a week ago with an awkwardness that 
merited the punishment it receiv^ed. Half a dozen people — 
only among the nicest of our set — are coming this evening 
to condole with me ; be sure to brighten us by adding 
yourself to the number. As a reward I will present two or 
three charming new men — only you are a hard-hearted 
wretch, and this will be no inducement. 

“ But come at all events, that I may hate you for having 
grown more beautiful and bewitching than ever, as every- 
body who met you last winter says you have. The idea of 
your stopping so long away from our dear Florence, where 
we are all as charming and sinful as usual, and adore you as 
you -do not deserve to be adored, icicle of a barbarian that 
you are, and nobody more devoted than your affectionate 

“ Nina Magnoletti.” 


THE FOBBIDDEN PATH 


Then followed a long postscript, which carried the note 
into the middle of a second sheet, and still left some bit of 
wonderful news unfinished — the whole written in graceful 
French, though apparently a spider’s leg had been employed 
as a pen — caressing, careless, decousu ; in short, a letter 
very characteristic of its writer, a pretty little Russian, 
who several years previous had gilded afresh one of the old 
Florentine titles with her roubles, carrying a heart into the 
transaction and receiving one in return, which she still 
owned, in spite of numerous temporary aberrations on the 
part of its original proprietor. 

“I shall go to Nina’s to-night,” Miss Cameron said to 
Eliza, more thoughtful of her old friend than Madame 
Magnoletti had been. “I don’t ask you to go with me 
because I know you are tired, and besides, they are sure to 
play baccarat, and that always shocks your scruples.” 

My dear, do not call them scruples.” 

Your morality, then — any fine-sounding name you 
please.” 

This was said late in the day, as the tw^o were driving 
in the Cascine. 

‘‘ It is too early to expect Florentines to be back from 
their villeggiatura, but I see quite a number, and a good 
many foreigners,” pursued Miss Cameron, as they ap- 
proached the open space where it is the habit for carriages 
to halt ; a habit formed in the days when a band played 
there, and people stopped under pretense of listening to the 
music — a thing nobody ever did by any chance. Then she 
added hastily, Oh, that horrid Greek !” 

What horrid Greek ?” asked Eliza. 

“ I don’t know, and I don’t w^ant to ! I nearly demol- 
ished him this morning, and he was so exasperatingly polite 
that I hate him.” 

“ That gentleman on the gray horse ? Why, he ‘ is not 
horrid at all ! What a very elegant man !” 

He shall be Adonis if you choose, but I hate him all 
the same ! For mercy’s sake don’t look that way ; he will 
know I have been telling you ; he is capable of bowing. 
Those Greeks are equal to any impertinence.” 

‘‘ Did he tell you he was a Greek ?” asked the literal 
Eliza. 

‘‘ Good heavens ! Do you suppose I stopped to inquire 
into his history and antecedents ? No doubt they would 


24 


THE OMEN. 


form a sweet tale for virginal ears "to listen to ! Eliza, 
Eliza ! I begin to fear that foreign wickedness has contam- 
inated you ! I shall send you back to America to recover 
your — what shall I call it ? — moral tone. Now that, I 
think, is a fine phrase !” 

. ‘‘ You make me laugh so, that you put everything out 
of my head !” cried Eliza, as soon as she could recover her 
gravity. Did you nearly run over him ? Do tell me 
about it,” for the spinster dearly loved anything in the 
shape of a romance. 

Violet was spared answering ; the victoria had stopped, 
and was immediately surrounded by a group of men eager 
to welcome the heiress, and Eliza received a share of the 
superabundant compliments, since she lived near the rose, 
and her good opinion might be of value. But she did not 
forget the stranger, and suddenly said in English to Miss 
Cameron : 

“ There he is again ! Such a melancholy face ; it is 
quite attractive ! Just ask his name ” 

“ I would not hear it for the world,” interrupted Violet; 
don’t I tell you I hate the man! You dreadful woman, 
showing an improper interest in a depraved Greek !” 

A fresh invasion of admirers claimed Miss Cameron’s 
attention, and Eliza herself was so engrossed that she had 
no opportunity to gain any information concerning Violet’s 
enemy, for when she recollected him, and turned to get 
another glance, the gray horse and its rider had disap- 
peared. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE OMEH. 

ISS CAMERON did not reach the Magnoletti 
villa until rather late, and she found madame’s 
half-dozen ” friends increased to several times 
that number, who, with invitation or without, had 
presented themselves. 

In one room there was music — in another men, and 
women too, were playing baccarat, and the pretty hostess 



THE OMEK 


25 


reclined on a sofa in the center salon, arrayed as an invalid 
in the most becoming costume imaginable. 

She received Violet with rapturous greetings, and made 
her sit down beside the couch, about which gathered knots 
of people anxious to renew their acquaintance with the 
beautiful American ; but after a while the two friends 
were left more at liberty, and able, in the intervals of 
general conversation, to exchange notes upon matters 
which possessed a personal interest. 

In the midst of some story madame was relating she 
noticed Miss Cameron start and turn uneasily in her chair, 

“ What is the matter ?” she asked. 

I don’t know,” Violet replied carelessly, though shiver- 
ing from head to foot. “ A sudden chill, as if somebody 
were walking over my grave : you remember our senseless 
English saying?” 

‘‘ Yes,” rejoined the marchesa. ‘‘But it is not senseless 
— I believe in it ! I am dreadfully superstitious, like any 
true Russian.” 

“ You are a dear little Muscovite goose — no, duck !” 
said Violet, trying to laugh, but unable to subdue the 
singular nervous trembling. 

Nina laughed with the same apparent effort ; she was 
startled by her friend’s change of color, and the troubled 
expression in her eyes. 

“ You are not well,” she said, desirous to reassure her- 
self and Violet by assigning a physical cause to the dis- 
turbance. “ You were tired from your journey, and the 
drive out here has upset you.” 

“ Yes, that is it — I’m tired,” Miss Cameron answered, 
holding her fan before her face. 

Though ordinarily little given to presentiments, the 
sensation which oppressed her seemed a warning of danger 
— not bodily peril ; as if some element inimical to her peace 
were about to force itself into her life. 

The marchesa beckoned to a gentleman and bade him 
bring a glass of wine. While she was thus occupied, Violet, 
wondering at her own folly, could not resist glancing 
about, half expecting to see some mysterious object start 
up and, by its hostile presence, explain the omen. 

Another instant and her eyes fell upon a person standing 
in a window opposite. He had not been there a few mo- 
ments before, she knew. His gaze met hers. She recog- 
2 


26 


THE OMEN. 


iiized the stranger wliom she had enc )untered in the morn- 
ing. Violet almost felt that her laughing assertion to Miss 
Bronson had been the truth — she hated this man ! Who 
was he ? what was he ? how came there ? 

He stood leaning one arm on the sill — tall, pale ; the 
mouth shrouded by a long drooping mustache, the thick 
curling hair somewhat worn off the temples ; the counte- 
nance intellectual and handsome, stamped with that pecu- 
liar melancholy which in another age was regarded as a 
premonition of early or violent death, though the breadth 
of the head and the vigor of the finely-molded chin pre- 
served the face from any signs of the weakness of character 
which usually belong to that type of physiognomy. 

Violet turned impatiently away. The messenger had 
come back with the wine, which she drank to escape expos- 
tulations ; then the gentleman was dispatched upon some 
new errand, just to be got rid of, and Violet, making a 
strong effort to listen, heard Nina say, apparently continu- 
ing a sentence lost upon her : 

I want you to know him. He went with us to the 
lakes, and Carlo and I both like him hugely. Are you bet- 
ter now? Ah, here he comes.” And the stranger was 
standing before her, and Nina saying : “ My dear, let me 

present one of your countrymen. Mr. Aylmer, you told 
me you had never had the pleasure of meeting Miss Cam- 
eron. I shall expect you to be my devoted slave all winter 
for affording you the happiness.” 

Mr. Aylmer was bowing to her, Violet, but answering 
the marchesa : 

“ Since I am only human, I must be that, whether I will 
or no.” 

“ Question !” cried Madame Magnoletti. ‘‘ Are men 
human ? My own opinion is that they have no claim to be 
so considered, in spite of their assertions — quCen dis-tu, ma 
Yiolette .^” 

And Violet, able to bend her head in response to the in- 
troduction, leaned back in her chair, and played negligently 
with her fan, finding some slow, half-disdainful, fine lady 
notes in her voice wherewith to reply: 

As to the race, female philosophy does not go far 
enough to decide. In particular instances, it can only 
admit that a mysterious Providence has granted poor woman 
nothing better.” 


TEE OMEK 


27 


For victim s,” rejoined Aylmer, laughing so lightly 
that, in her overstrained mood the pleasant sound gave 
Violet a shock — a beneficial one, acting upon her mind as a 
dash of cold water would have done upon her physical 
nerves. 

Straightway her composure returned ; she was ready to 
smile at her late absurd sensation, to pronounce it simply a 
result of bodily fatigue ; above all things, to refuse Mr. 
Aylmer any share in its meaning, even if it were to be con- 
sidered magnetic or supernatural. 

And Nina, watching her, rejoiced to see that the odd 
discomposure had passed, in no way connecting Aylmer 
therewith ; in spite of her quickness not having perceived 
that Violet’s eyes had so much as glanced towards him 
while he stood in the window. 

They talked gayly for a few moments, then other men 
came up, and Mr. Aylmer yielded his place. When an op- 
portunity offered, Nina asked : 

What do you think of him ? I did not say too much. 
He really is charming — now admit it, mademoiselle la diffi- 
cile !” 

Which ^him’?” returned Violet. ‘‘You have pre- 
sented three different men to me within the last ten 
minutes.” 

“Your countryman — Laurence Aylmer — the others are 
of no consequence. You know, as a rule. Carlo does not 
take to foreigners, anymore than Florentines do generally ; 
but he came to us under unusual auspices,” pursued Nina, 
eagerly. “ Alexis is traveling in America — I wrote you so 
— am sure it was your fault he went off ! You heartless 
thing ! why wouldn’t you be my sister ?” 

“ Nonsense !” 

“ Oh, very well — you are a barbarous wretch ! How- 
ever, it is not Alexis and his broken heart that are in ques 
tion now, but this stranger within our gates ! You must 
know Alexis was out hunting on those dreadful American 
prairies — tigers — no, buffaloes — or whatever it is they hunt 
there — and he fell ill with some horrible fever, such as one 
must go to America to catch, and along comes Aylmer with 
his party and nurses Alexis, and saves his life. Now isn’t 
it like a story ?” 

“Very like,” Violet replied languidly. 

“ You don’t care !” cried Nina. “ Alexis, and Aylmer, 


28 


TEE OMEN. 


and every other man might be devoured by fevers or buffa* 
loes, and you would only yawn. Well, I shall finish my 
history just to punish you. Alexis thought he was dying, 
and made Aylmer promise to come and break the news to 
me ; but after all he didn’t die.” 

“ Naturally, he did not do what he said he would — being 
mortal,” observed Violet. “ But since Count Apraxin failed 
to keep his word, what sent my countryman in search of 
you ?” 

“ Oh, he was coming to Europe in any case, it seems. 
Alexis had written us volumes about him, and of course we 
received him with open arms ; you know how warm-hearted 
Carlo is, in spite of his pretense at cynicism.” 

‘‘ Though I did not know his generous impulses went to 
the length of allowing you to receive young men with o^^en 
arms.” 

“ Don’t be literal — it is always coarse. Well, his whole 
story is a romance. He lost a fortune through the villainy of 
some man he had trusted — so he has taken to literature, and 
comes here to write a book. It ought to be poetry, but it 
isn’t — though he looks a poet, every inch of him ! Archaeo- 
logical, Carlo says ; but, thank heaven, I don’t know what 
it means, and when Carlo tried to explain, I went fast 
asleep : though, I give you my word, I woke up quickly 
enough when he flew into a rage and said he was going to 
see Giulia da Rimini. My dear, she is more odious and 
outrageous than ever. But where was I ?” gasped Nina, 
stopping to take breath. 

“ I have not the least idea,” groaned Violet. “You are 
worse than the waters of Lodore — if you ever heard of them.” 

“I have — I know as much English as you ! But no 
matter ; you’ll not get rid of my story by abusing me.” 

“ Do you mean to say the story is not ended yet ?” 

“Well, I am afraid it is — but now own that he looks 
like a hero ! And isn’t it quite in keeping for him to be 
ruined ? And of course he must find a princess to fall in 
love with him — only it seems dreadful he should not be 
rich ; and I hope that wretch who brought it about has to 
suffer — Mr. Han — Ban — no, Danvers ! A villain, my dear, 
and one of your countrymen, too, as might be expected — 
take that scratch for your impertinence. Of course Aylmer 
has not said a word, but Alexis wrote us all about it, and I 
remembered the wretch’s ugly name — George Danvers.” 


THE OMEN, 


29 


1 


Another of George Danvers’s victims — certainly a 
reason for Violet to sympathize with the man, instead 
of trying to fancy that she disliked him because of the 
morning’s unfortunate encounter. 

George Danvers !” she repeated mechanically. 

‘‘ Yes ; but never mind him — he is dead and gone,” 
said Nina. I want everybody to like Aylmer j he is a 
great favorite already. Now you won’t hate him, will 
you ?” 

Not unless you worry me about him,” replied Violet. 

I promise ! And I have an idea ! There is that ter- 
rifically rich little American girl down in Rome — I forget 
her name ; but she would be the \evy partie for him.” 

And here, to Miss Cameron’s relief, other guests came up 
and engrossed the marchesa’s attention. Violet accepted 
some man’s arm and walked through the salons, talking and 
being talked to, as was her duty — stopping for a little in 
the card-room behind the Marchese Magnoletti’s chair, at 
his request, to bring him good luck. 

After awhile she found herself in the music-hall, and 
paused to listen to a young professional, with the most 
delicious tenor voice Florence had discovered in years. 
Then she suddenly felt a longing to escape from everybody 
for a few minutes, and seized an opportunity when she 
could stray unperceived into a gallery beyond. She stood 
by one of the windows, looking out over the moonlit lawn 
and gardens. She heard a step on the marble pavement, 
turned, and saw Mr. Aylmer walking back and forth at the 
farther end of the great apartment, where a row of pillars 
cast long black shadows across the dazzling floor. 

She moved slowly towards him. He stood still, watch- 
ing her. The moonlight, which transfigures all objects, 
rendered her wondrously beautiful. He had an odd fancy 
that he was seeing her as her soul would appear in a higher 
stage of existence, freed from the shackles which fetter us 
here. 

Mr. Aylmer,” she said, in her low, clear tones. 

He came forward, the admiration, which just then had 
a certain solemnity akin to awe mingled with it, visible in 
his face ; but Violet was too much occupied with her own 
thoughts to notice. As he reached her side, she said, 
abruptly ; 


80 


THE OMEK 


I want you to tell me something about George Dan- 
vers and his family.” 

He regarded her in astonishment. Evidently, too, the 
subject was a painful one to him. 

How did you know they were acquaintances of mine ?” 
he asked. 

Of course the marchesa told me,” she answered, and 
could hear an impatient ring in her voice, which troubled 
her as a sort of rudeness, though she could no more check 
it than find a satisfactory reason therefor. 

The marchesa has been told nothing of them by me,” 
he said, a little coldly. 

At least, she knows that you met with losses through 
Mr. Danvers — never mind how she knew it,” returned 
Violet, marveling more and more at herself ; and, indeed, 
this almost peremptory abruptness was so unlike her 
ordinary demeanor that her best friends would have mar- 
veled too. You did have trouble through his means ?” 

‘‘ I beg your pardon. Miss Cameron. I do not think I 
ought to talk of him, unless you have some strong motive 
for desiring it. He is dead, and I don’t want to be harsh 
or unjust.” 

George Danvers was my cousin. I want to hear 
about his daughter. You know her? Well, tell me what 
she is like.” 

A little — it strikes me now I know she is a relative — 
a little like you,” returned he, after a pause, in which he 
had appeared somewhat disturbed, naturally enough, after 
such sudden touching of a deep wound. 

Like me ? I am not sure that is a recommendation,” 
Violet answered, trying to get back her ordinary manner. 

‘‘ Nor is she,” he said. “ I cannot explain what I mean. 
There is a suggestion of you in her, nothing more — I don’t 
know how to express it — as there is of a flower in a bud.” 

Poetical, but not clear,” said Miss Cameron, with a 
laugh. “ So you suffered through that wretched man ? I 
fear he was a very bad one — not even kind to his wdfe and 
daughter.” 

I fear not,” Aylmer replied, and his voice showed that 
he could reveal more had he chosen — showed, too, that he 
did not choose. ‘‘ I never heard Danvers speak of you. 
Your relationship takes me by surprise,” he added. 

No, he was not likely to speak of me,” she said. ‘‘We 


THE OMEN, 


81 


had not met for many years. I wrote to his daughter this 
morning. I have invited her to come to me. 1 am sorry 
you suffered at the father’s hands.” 

Oh, at twenty-seven, when one loses only money, one 
ought not to complain,” Aylmer replied, cheerfully. “ I 
have health, strength — a good deal left, you see.” 

‘^Twenty-seven !” Why should the words give Violet 
a fresh shock ? Why should she mentally repeat them 
again and again ? She did, though vexed with herself the 
while — more than ever irritated against him, asking her 
conscience if this rose from envy. Twenty-seven, and a 
man — his whole life before him ! And she thirty-three, 
and a woman — youth a thing of the past. Even had she 
numbered only his years, this would still be the case, since 
— she was a woman. 

She began walking up and down between the pillars. 
Her long silken skirts trailed over the pavement, their soft 
ivory tint making a pretty contrast to the cold, bluish-white 
of the marble. The moonbeams wove a crown about her 
hair, which looked black in their glory ; her eyes black 
too, unnaturally large and bright, from the inexplicable un- 
rest which had troubled her soul during the last hour. 

.He walked beside her ; and for a few moments they 
talked of Italy, of Florence, of the galleries, and, as sud- 
denly as her unrest had seized her, the feeling died. 

“ Was ever woman in such an idiotic mood as I am?” 
Violet thought. “ I am frightened, cross — everything that 
is silly, and all without reason.” Then she said aloud : 
“Now I must go back. After all, you have told me noth- 
ing about George Danvers’s daughter. You shall do that 
another time.” 

Again he looked somewhat troubled, but she had her 
head turned away. 

“ Whenever I have the pleasure of seeing you again,” 
he said. 

“ The marchesa will bring you to my house, if you like 
to come,” she answered. Then that same ill-disposed im- 
pulse rose in her breast anew, and she added, “ I am just 
off a long journey ; after awhile, when I get rested, I shall 
begin to receive people.” 

She moved on so quickly that he could not help under- 
standing he was not to follow, and he remained gazing 


32 


THE OMEN, 


after her as she glided away like a spirit among the moon- 
beams. 

Violet, reflecting that her behavior during the entire in- 
terview had been open to censure, again marveled what 
could render her this night so unlike herself, and, once 
more back in the salon, rushed into her gayest mood and 
charmed everybody. Later, she caught a glimpse of Mr. 
Aylmer standing silent near the marchesa’s sofa. After 
that she did not see him again. 

Violet’s carriage was the last to leave the villa ; Nina 
had kept her for more confidential talk over nothing, and 
Carlo insisted upon his right to a little attention, vowing 
that he had been afforded no opportunity even to speak to 
her. 

You should make opportunities,” said Nina. 

‘‘As I am neither baccarat nor Giulia da Rimini, I can- 
not expect him to take so much trouble,” rejoined Violet. 

Carlo wrung his hands, and declared that, between his 
wife and the woman he worshiped, no man was ever so 
ill-treated as he, and altogether they wasted a good half- 
hour in nonsense which would not repay for the trouble of 
setting down in black and white, though it amused the 
speakers sufficiently. 

Violet drove away up the dazzling white road, so pre- 
occupied that she did not notice how fast the horses went, 
or that several times her faithful Antonio, seated on the 
box, spoke reprovingly to the coachman, who remained ob- 
stinately deaf to his expostulations. 

The night was unusually warm for Tuscany at that sea- 
son ; summer seemed to have come back during the last 
few days. The landau had been left open, and a soft 
breeze, odorous of fields and woods, kissed Violet’s cheek ; 
the moon glowed like a great disk of illuminated alabaster 
in mid-heaven ; the farther hills rose shadowy and gigantic 
in the silvery, mysterious light. 

Now the sound of rapidly rushing water became audi- 
ble, and a sharp turn in the road brought them close to a 
stream swollen by late rains to ominous dimensions. 

The highway grew very narrow here ; a break in the 
wall which guarded it on the side of the torrent, had not 
been mended. The horses took fright at a dog which ran 
past barking fiercely ; they swerved and reared. The 
coachman plied the lash ; Antonio shrieked at him in angry 


THE OMEK 


83 


alarm, and Violet suddenly roused herself to a sense of the 
danger by which they were menaced — a fall over the pre- 
cipitous bank. 

Before she could move, a man started out from the 
shadow of a tree close to the edge of the stream, waved 
his hat full in the faces of the terrified animals, and as they 
backed, seized them by the bridles. At the same instant, 
Antonio snatched the reins from the coachman, and tug- 
ging thereat with all his force, helped to turn the horses’ 
heads into the road again. 

The danger was over, but even as Violet thought this, 
the beasts plunged forward, and the pole struck the man’s 
shoulder with such violence that he fell backwards. 

There followed a few seconds of partial insensibility, 
fuller of agony than any pain she had ever endured, from 
the ability her mind preserved to take in a sense of utter 
helplessness ; then the horses had been stopped, and she 
saw Antonio stooping over a body prostrate in the dust. 
Presently — how she got there she could no more have told 
than if she had been in some dreadful dream — she was be- 
side him, looking down into the face of Laurence Aylmer 
— cold, white, fixed ; the face of a dead man, she thought ; 
a man killed in the very act of saving her life. 

Violet heard her own voice — though the words seemed 
spoken without her volition — saying : 

Is he dead ? ” 

“ I cannot’ tell,” Antonio replied, in the same half-whis- 
pering tone. They both stared anew at the white face that 
he supported on his knee, and another question broke simul- 
taneously from their lips : 

“ What are we to do ? ” 

The coachman came up ; he had fastened the horses to 
a tree, where they stood quiet enough now the mischief was 
done, and he himself appeared perfectly sober, whatever he 
might have been before the accident occurred. 

He leaned forward, studied the white face in his turn, 
and muttered : 

fatto di lui ! ” 

“ And if so, you murdered him ! ” returned Antonio, in 
a fierce whisper ; “ you drunken assassin ! ” 

“I was not drunk,” said the coachman, hoarsely ; ‘‘I 
had a presentiment of evil on me — ask the marchese’s cook 
if I did not tell him so.” 


84 


THE OMEK 


Violet caught the explanation, and with difficulty re* 
frained from a burst of hysterical laughter. There was 
something hideous, revolting, in the fat, coarse creature’s 
looks and speech in that presence, which hurt her like a 
broad farce intruded in the midst of a tragedy. 

‘‘And you fulfilled your presentiment ?” said Antonio. 

“ Holy Saint Joseph, only listen to him ! ” groaned the 
coachman, flinging up both arms. 

“ Hush ! ” Violet said sternly, and her voice silenced the 
pair. She turned sick and cold, but the lethargy which had 
locked her senses and kept her powerless as a person in a 
nightmare, suddenly passed — she could think and act. 
“You must put him into the carriage,” she said. “ Quick, 
Antonio ! don’t lose any more time.” 

Both men were sane enough to carry out an order, 
though neither would have been capable of suggesting an 
idea. They managed between them to lift their burden 
into the landau. Violet took off a thin scarf, which was 
wrapped about her head, and bade Antonio dip it in the 
water, a command which, after several abortive efforts, he 
succeeded in obeying. As she moistened the forehead and 
lips of the insensible man she felt a slight quiver stir his 
frame. 

“ He is not dead ! ” she whispered, and now her strength 
came back. 

Antonio laid his hand on the feebly-pulsating heart, 
and, after an instant, repeated : 

“ He is not dead ! Shall we take him to the villa, ma- 
demoiselle ? ” 

“ Yes — no ; that would only be wasting time — there is 
no doctor there. How far are we from the town ? ” 

“More than a mile, mademoiselle.” 

Violet stepped into the carriage. 

“ Drive on — drive fast ! ” she said. 

What a journey that was — what an endless period those 
brief moments seemed to cover, Violet sat supporting the 
heavy, helpless head, unable to move her eyes from the 
face which showed ashen and rigid in the moonlight. Her 
presentiment ! Was this what the dreadful warning had 
meant ? Killed — killed under her wheels ! George Dan- 
vers had ruined this man, and now she was the means^ of 
sending him out of the world ! By what strange fatality 
had she and her race proved such a curse to him ? Hosts 


THE OMEK 


85 


of vague, wild thoughts rushed through her brain — others 
came — she could exercise no control over her mind ; it wan- 
dered where it would. Was he dead already ? If so, 
where had it gone — that soul ? She stared up at the moon 
and stars : heaven itself seemed so pitiless, so mocking in 
its tranquil beauty ! 

Oh, the time — the time ! Would the drive never end — 
never ? 

Then Antonio’s voice roused her. They had reached 
the city gates. Antonio leaned down in his seat and said : 

Where are we to go ? Does mademoiselle know 
where the poor gentleman lived ? ” 

Miss Cameron’s lips framed a mute negative. 

“ And it is two o’clock — every place shut — not an hotel 
would open to let that in,” moaned Antonio, emphasizing 
his meaning by a gesture towards the motionless form. 

Violet shivered from head to foot in an icy chill ; then 
a thought suggested itself : no, some power extraneous to 
her faculties appeared to suggest it. 

‘‘ Drive to Professor Schmidt’s,” she said ; ‘Wia della 
Scala.” 

Doctor Schmidt was an old German physician, retired 
from practice ; a man with a European reputation. She 
was certain of his being in Florence — they had come from 
Venice together. 

The carriage rolled down the street. What a noise the 
wheels made on the stones — it sounded like thunder in her 
ears ! All the while she was watching that face ; she 
wanted to look away — she could not ! Heavier and 
heavier grew the weight upon her shoulder ; was he dead, 
yet — dead ? 

Then the landau paused in front of the professor’s 
house. It chanced that the old savant had been reading 
late ; just before the carriage stopped he had opened a 
window of his study, which was on the ground-floor, and 
stood looking out. Violet saw him. 

Come — come quick !” she called in German. 

The doctor laid his great pipe down upon the window* 
sill, lifted his spectacles and stared open-mouthed. 

Ach Gott! Fraulein Cameron !” he exclaimed. 

He hurried out of doors ; the instant he caught sight of 
the face resting on Miss Cameron’s shoulder, he cri,ed ; 


86 


THE OMEN. 


Gott in Ilimmel — it is Laurence Aylmer ! What ia 
this ? What is this 

It required only a brief explanation to make him under- 
stand what had happened. Yiolet gave it clearly enough, 
in spite of her fright and horror. 

‘‘ Is he dead she whispered. 

A moment’s dreadful silence, then the professor an- 
swered : 

‘‘No, not dead. He must be got home. Take him 
home.” 

“ I don’t know where he lives,” groaned Violet. 

“No hotel would receive him — these brutes of Floren- 
tines !” added Antonio, who, in his quality of ex-courier, 
spoke every civilized language like his mother-tongue. 

“ True, true !” muttered the professor. “ And I have no 
room. The fools are altering my apartment. I have 
hardly a place to put ray bed.” 

“ To ray house !” cried Violet. “ Get in, professor ; we 
are losing time. Come — come !” 

The doctor rushed back into his study, and returned 
quickly with a square box in his hand. 

As the carriage dashed off, Violet heard the coachman 
croak again like some bird of ill-omen : 

“ fatto di lui 

“ My poor Laurence !” said the professor. “ He came 
to see me this very morning.” 

“ Oh, then you know where he lives ?” 

“No ; he was just changing quarters — agreed to come 
to-morrow. I knew him well in America — a splendid fel- 
low ! To see him like this ! Ach Gotti but it is of no 
use lamenting,” he broke off gruffly. 

They reached the palace. The porter was still up, and 
Miss Cameron’s maid awaiting her return ; every other 
member of the household had been in bed for hours. 

The ground-floor contained a suite of rooms which 
Violet had fitted up for friends who might chance to stop 
wdth her. Was the place in order ? she asked. Surely, in 
perfect order, the porter averred. So the men carried their 
burden into the apartment, and laid it on the bed in the 
sleeping-room ; Violet following mechanically. 

The professor turned quite fiercely upon her, as his 
manner was, saying : 


THE OMEN. 


87 


You are to go away, Fraulein ; you are not wanted 
here.” 

‘‘ He is not dead ?” again she whispered. You are 
certain ?” 

“ Plenty of life in him yet — • There, there, get 
to your bed ; get to your bed.” 

But though he growled out the order and frowned 
blackly from under his beetle-brows, he led her gently to 
the door, patting her hand as if she had been a child. 

She found her maid waiting above stairs, and dismissed 
her without mentioning what had happened, unable to bear 
questionings or feminine lamentations just then. 

After a little she went out on the landing again and lis- 
tened — no sound was audible from below. It seemed to 
her that she waited a long time ; the suspense became 
unendurable. She crept down to the entrance-hall and 
peered into the lodge — it was empty ; probably Giovanni’s 
services had been required. She paused near the door of 
the apartments in which the injured man lay, then mounted 
the staircase again, treading as cautiously as though her 
step could disturb the sufferer. 

She paced the antechamber and adjacent salon. An 
hour elapsed. Her vigil remained unbroken ; but go to 
her room, even keep still, she could not. She felt so guilty, 
so wicked ! She recollected her haughty words in the 
morning, her ill-disguised irritation of the evening, with a 
shame almost as passionate as remorse. Verily, the trouble 
presaged by her soul had come, but not of the nature she 
had dreaded. The omen had been fulfilled, but he was the 
sufferer. The time dragged on ; yet, though exhausted by 
fatigue and excitement, she must have news before she 
tried to sleep. 

Through the arched casement, which almost filled one 
end of the antechamber, gray gleams began to break across 
a gap in the shutters. Day had come again. She won- 
dered what it would be like, after the awful experience of 
the night. 

At last she heard a sound — the careful opening and 
closing of a door — then steps on the stairs. Antonio, en- 
tering, found himself face to face with his mistress, so pale 
and wan that her appearance fairly startled him. 

“ Is it all over ?” she asked, in a hoarse whisper. 

‘‘ No, no, mademoiselle ! There is every hope !” he 


38 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


cried eagerly. “ I could not come before. I did not dream 
that mademoiselle was waiting.” 

‘‘ I wanted to hear,” she answered, drawing a breath ol 
relief. How is he hurt ?” 

The left shoulder is dislocated — the blow from the 
pole did that,” Antonio explained. ‘‘ He fell with such 
force on the back of his head that it has caused concussion 
of the brain.” 

“ Then he is insensible !” 

“ Oh, completely — may stay so for forty-eight hours ; 
but the professor is sure everything will go well,” he added 
hastily, seeing her shrink. “ Mademoiselle must get to her 
bed ; she will be ill. The doctor remains. I only came up 
to put out the lamps ; I had forgotten them.” 

He will not — not die — the professor is sure ?” 

“ There is every hope,” Antonio asserted, more reso- 
lutely than he had warrant for doing. “ The doctor is so 
skillful — kind, too, though he does speak roughly some- 
times ! But the thing now is for mademoiselle to get to 
her bed. Yes, indeed, that is what is imperative !” 

Violet found a certain sense of relief in receiving any 
positive direction. She went away to her room, undressed, 
and lay down, and, before long, fell into a deep, dreamless 
slumber. 


CHAPTER IV. 

A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 

LEEP calmed Miss Cameron’s nerves sufficiently, 
so that she was able to appear like her ordinary 
self. 

Clarice brought her Antonio’s report. There 
was no change in the injured man’s condition. 
The professor had gone home, but would return at nine 
o’clock. Miss Bronson appeared, greatly excited by^ the 
news which had reached her — naturally enough eager for 
particulars of the accident ; and, to avoid giving them, 
Violet hurried her off to an early church service which 
some saint’s day offered. 



A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


89 


After the professor had visited his patient, he came up 
stairs and explained the state of the case. The stupor was 
the inevitable result of the hurt to the brain, and might last 
from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. After that, if every- 
thing went well, recovery need not be a long affair. But, 
hopefully as he tried to speak, Violet could see that he was 
very anxious. 

And he must stay where he is till cured,” said the pro- 
fessor ; “no removing for him. So make up your mind to 
it, Fraulein Cameron. Ah, how do you do. Miss Bronson ? 
You look as fresh as a field daisy,” he added, as the 
spinster entered just in time to hear that closing verdict, 
which filled her with horror. 

Her mind had been sorely disturbed by the remarks of 
acquaintances she encountered at church ; and even her 
sympathy for sufiiering paled momentarily before her dread 
of the reports to which the accident and the stranger 
gentleman’s presence under that roof might give rise. 

“ Here the poor fellow is, and here he stays !” continued 
the professor. 

“ From the way you speak, one would think I wished to 
send him away,” returned Violet. 

“ No, no ; I am not likely to think that ! Still, it is un- 
fortunate,” said Schmidt, rubbing his nose. 

“ Most unfortunate,” sighed Eliza, as she sank into a 
chair. 

Now the old German and Miss Bronson were antipa- 
thetic to one another, and the instant she echoed his words, 
Schmidt could not help rejoining : 

“ Why so. Miss Bronson ?” 

“ Such talk as there will be — you know Florence !” 

“ I know the galleries and museums, but I don’t know 
your gossips, if they are what you mean by Florence,” 
said he. 

“Please don’t call them my gossips,” retorted Eliza, 
bridling ; “ I think no one — not my worst enemy, if I have 
an enemy — could accuse me of a taste for such society.” 

“ I have accused you of nothing ! An enemy — why 
shouldn’t you have one, or twenty, as well as another — tell 
me that. Miss Bronson ?” cried the professor, triumphantly. 

“You said yourself it was unfortunate,” sighed Eliza. 

“ But I was not thinking of the gossips.” 

“ Well, one has to think of them ! Oh, they will say 


40 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


dreadful things ! A young gentleman in the house with 
two lone ladies.” 

The professor put his hand to his mouth and made a 
grimace behind it which Eliza did not catch, but Violet 
laughed outright. 

“We can hardly be called ‘ lone,’ with such a troop of 
servants,” she said. “ Really, Eliza, I don’t think we run 
much risk.” 

“ I know what will be said, as well as if I had heard it,” 
replied Eliza, with prophetic voice and mien; “it will not 
be the Italians alone, though the Americans and English 
always do ascribe the slanders to them, I know !” and she 
began to fan herself with a newspaper which lay on the 
table, fixing her eyes with mingled sternness and reproach 
on the physician, as if the whole affair were his fault. 

“She would make a splendid model for a picture of 
Cassandra,” said old Schmidt, taking a pinch of snuff ; 
“ now would she not, Fraulein Cameron ?” 

“ I am not thinking of models or pictures,” returned 
Eliza, loftily. 

“No, no, you make us think of them,” said the provok- 
ing savant ; “ that is your mission.” 

Come, Eliza, don’t be miserable,” added Violet. “If 
people abuse me, I will exonerate you from any share of 
blame. What could I do ?” 

“ Mr. Aylmer has aresidence of some kind — somewhere — 
I mppose^'^ replied Eliza, with withering emphasis. 

“But I did not know where, my dear.” 

The doctor took snuff and studied Eliza with a slow, 
German appreciation. 

“ You will have to endure it,” he said. “ Miss Bronson, 
your character will be ruined, but you can come out in a 
new one, that of martyr. You are a religious woman — you 
believe in the saints, and all the rest of the family ! You 
ought to be thankful that martyrdom is permitted you. 
The early Christians were eager for it, so their historians 
say : you must imitate them — imitate them.” 

“ Professor Schmidt, I do think you are the cruellest man 
alive !” whimpered Eliza ; “ but you might spai^ me jests 
on that subject ! You may be a materialist ; but it is no 
reason 

“Wait, wait !” broke in the savant ; “what is a mate- 
rialist ? Do you tell me that first.” 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


41 


‘‘A man who believes in nothing — like you,” cried 
Eliza, growing vexed enough to turn upon him. 

Wrong,” said the professor, in a tone of enjoyment, 
entirely wrong ! Now, about those early Christians of 
yours ” 

Do not try to shake my faith,” broke in Eliza ; you 
cannot do it. 1 believe the Bible, and the Apostles’ Creed, 
and ” 

“And fore-ordination and general damnation, and all 
the other ‘ ations,’ ” finished the doctor, while she was taking 
breath. “ Well, well, don’t get excited — it is bad for the 
digestion. What you call the soul may not be of much 
consequence, but the stomach is.” 

“ Violet, it is dreadful to hear him talk so. I wonder 
you can let him !” moaned Eliza. 

“ My dear, I grew accustomed to hearing you two quar- 
rel last summer in the Dolomites. I am past being 
shocked by what either of you can say.” 

“ Now suppose we take St. Paul,” continued the savant. 
“Admit that he wrote the first four of the epistles which 
bear his name, what have you proved ? He made a gross 
blunder — he said the end of the world was at hand. 
Now, one of two things : either he was deceiving others, 
or he deceived himself. Assume the latter to have been 
the case. You do away with all possibility of his being 
inspired — you ” 

“ I won’t hear !” shrieked Eliza, and, putting her hands 
to her ears, she ran out of the room. 

The savant looked at Violet with a mingled humor and 
satisfaction. 

“ I thought I could find a way to make her leave you 
in peace,” said he. “She’ll not worry you about her 
gossips again to-day.” 

“ I dare say she was right enough in saying that all 
sorts of nonsensical reports will be spread.” 

“ I dare say she was. But you don’t mean to care ?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“ Come,” said the professor, frowning at her with fierce 
approval ; “you remember what the Englishman, Sydney 
Smith said, about God and the strawberry ? Well, I shall 
apply it to you. No doubt Nature could have framed a more 
sensible woman, but I don’t believe Nature ever did. And 
BOW' I am going back to my patient.” 


42 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


Violet had known the professor for several years, and 
knew that his heart was on the same scale as his great in- 
tellect. He was an old man now, but vigorous as ever in body 
and mind. He had given up the practice of his profession 
a long while before, though frequently called upon for ad- 
vice in difficult cases, and his decisions were regarded 
almost like those of fate. He was a naturalist as well as a 
physician, and had written various books, which had been 
translated into several languages. Unfortunately, these 
works so clearly proved the unorthodox tenor of his opinions 
that many people regarded him as a potent emissary of the 
Evil One. But, whatever he believed or disbelieved, he 
certainly carried out more thoroughly the chief precept of 
the Master than any person Violet had ever met, and she 
had a warm friendship for him. He never attempted to 
trouble her religious faith, though now and then he could 
not resist teasing Miss Bronson, for there were times when 
she irritated him. 

‘‘ I cannot tell why she should,” he would say, “ and you 
can’t tell why the buzzing of a blue-bottle fly irritates you, 
but it does.” 

Yet he was very good to her ; indeed, his acquaintance 
with the two ladies began by his curing poor Eliza of a 
severe attack of sciatica, which seized her while sojourning 
in the Tyrol, and she felt exceedingly grateful to him, 
though nobody could shudder more profoundly over his 
heterodoxy. She would as soon have dreamed of robbing 
a church as reading one of his productions, and was kept in 
mortal fear by his threats of dedicating to her a volume 
which he declared himself concocting upon her favorite 
Apostle, whose name so often sounded as a battle-cry be- 
tween them. 

Has he gone ? ” asked the spinster, putting her head in 
at the door. Oh, my dear, when he is doing a kindness 
he talks more dreadfully than ever ! But you are writing ; 
I disturb you.” 

“ 1 have finished — only a note to Nina. Please ring the 
bell ; one of the men must ride out to the villa immediately. 
I did not like to send until I had heard the professor’s opin- 
ion after hi^ morning visit.” 

When the order had been given, Eliza sat down and 
sighed vigorously. 


A BOUQUET OF JESS AMINES. 


43 


“ So unfortunate,” she repeated ; so terribly unfortu- 
nate ! ” 

“ If you want to be unhappy, my dear,” said Violet, 
you must hunt up some less preposterous bugbear, else I 
can offer you no sympathy. You forget that poor man 
was hurt in saving me from danger.” 

Eliza was silenced and ashamed, but not convinced. 
She could not help still regarding Violet as a heedless girl, 
only saved from indiscretions by her companionship ; oc- 
casionally falling into them in spite of that — witness the 
present instance. Poor Eliza felt confident that if she had 
gone to the villa, matters would somehow have been differ- 
ent, and she dwelt upon this idea, notwithstanding its man- 
ifest absurdity, until she made herself very wretched. 

It was a relief to the spinster when not only the 
marchese appeared in hot haste, but Nina, though her ankle 
was so swollen that she had to be carried up stairs. 

“ Here I am,” she said ; “and a regular old man of the 
sea you will find me. Carlo says I must not stir for several 
days.” 

“Your presence will be a comfort to Eliza,” replied 
Violet. “ You are not very correct, but at least you are 
married, and so will answer as a dragon to protect us two 
youthful innocents.” 

They teased Miss Bronson sadly, not so much for the 
satisfaction of doing it as to keep from dwelling upon their 
fears. 

Late in the following afternoon Aylmer recovered con- 
sciousness, but at first he had no recollection of the acci- 
dent. The details of the preceding day came back — his 
adventure in the Cascine — and slowly his mind followed 
along the track of events till he reached his second meet- 
ing with that beautiful woman ; but it refused to go further 
than the moment when, roused from his reverie by the 
roadside, he saw her in danger, and sprang up with some 
vague wild determination to save or die with her. 

He passed a comfortable night, and the next morning 
the autocratic professor allowed Carlo to visit him for a 
few moments. Aylmer could talk but little ; he said some* 
thing in his slow, difficult speech about the trouble he was 
in all ways to his good friend. Before Carlo could answer 
he caught the professor’s glance, so comically ferocious that 
he had much ado not to laugh. 


44 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMIFES. 


‘^He wants to fret over my holding him fast in my 
den,” said the savant, bestowing a second scowl of intelli- 
gence on Carlo, who, with Italian quickness, perceived that 
the doctor had concealed from the patient the fact of his 
being in Miss Cameron’s house lest the knowledge should 
worry him. 

“ I am sorry I haven’t you out at the villa,” the 
marchese observed, “ but you couldn’t be better off than 
in the clutches of our ogre.” ' 

Just so !” returned the professor, nodding his appre- 
ciation of the speaker’s acquiescence in his wise deception.- 
However, it makes no difference what anybody is glad or 
sorry about. I propose to have him up very soon, but he 
has got to belong to me, body and soul — recollect that, 
young American ! And now you have talked more than 
enough. Magnoletti may take himself off, and don’t you 
so much as wink till I give you leave.” 

Carlo went back up stairs to give an account of his in- 
terview. 

“What with Nina established in your drawing-room 
and poor Aylmer down below — a sister already provided 
for nurse, and the professor evidently intending to keep 
his quarters here, I think. Miss Cameron, you had better 
open the house as a public hospital and be done with it,” he 
said. 

“ As it will not be for moral or rather immoral incura- 
bles, you will stand no chance of admittance,” returned his 
wife, “ nor will Giulia da Rimini either.” 

“ Positively the first time 1 have heard her name 
to-day !” cried he. 

“ She will be here before it ends — see if she is not,” 
said Nina. “She has been making eyes at Aylmer ever 
since he came to Florence.” 

“ Nonsense, Nina !” and Carlo’s voice sounded a little 
nettled. 

“ I know it is nonsense. Carlo, for he never so much as 
looks at her if he can help it. He does not share your 
abnormal tastes ; he hates black women.” 

“ He tells you that just because you are a colorless little 
thing,” retorted Carlo, and received a severe pinch for his 
impertinence. 

Eliza considered the whole conversation improper, and 
sighed over Violet’s fondness for this careless-tongued pair, 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES, 


45 


though she had almost as great a weakness for them her- 
self, in spite of her disapproval of their talk and habits of 
thought. 

Although Miss Cameron’s arrival had been so recent 
that. as yet she had paid no visits, the news of the accident 
afforded people too good an excuse for calling to await 
such ceremony. Not only many of her friends came, but 
numerous persons, mostly waifs from the American and 
English colonies, took that opportunity to try and establish 
an acquaintance, or at least renew relations with Miss 
Bronson. Few of the visitors saw Violet, but Eliza 
appeared and received so many kisses from enthusiastic 
Anglo-Saxon ladies, that her nose felt quite tender. She 
related the adventure so often, that she succeeded in giving 
it with great dramatic effect, and tried so hard to explain 
how it happened the hero was lying under Violet’s roof, 
that the simple facts grew into a mystery which would 
have been enough to ruin the reputation of a dozen 
ordinary women. 

But common rules could not apply to the conduct of a 
lady so rich as Violet Cameron ; whatever she did was well 
done, from hiding a man in her house to cutting off as 
many heads as Bluebeard. Women might slander her ; 
might believe and say the most atrocious things as they did 
of each other, but they would bow down before her all the 
same and lick the dust at her feet — for it was gold-dust. 

“ I have told everybody how it came about,” Eliza 
said, triumphantly. No one thinks you did wrong, 
Violet ; it is such a relief !” 

‘‘ How can you keep from strangling her ?” cried Nina, 
when the spinster was again called out of the room. “ Im- 
agine her explanations !” 

I would rather not ! But no matter what she says, if 
she only relieves her feelings. I am very fond of her ; it 
is better she should ruin my reputation than be unhappy.” 

Presently a visitor was announced for the marchesa, 
and into the salon floated Giulia da Rimini — dark, haughty, 
handsome. Roman-looking, and exquisitely-dressed. 

Didn’t I tell you she would come !” Nina had time to 
whisper. 

My dear Miss Cameron — my darling Nina !” cried the 
duchess, and kissed each in turn. “ I went out to the villa, 
Nina, and heard you came here yesterday. I feared you 


46 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 


were worse and wanted to be near the doctor. My alarm 
must excuse my rushing in on you. Miss Cameron, in this 
unceremonious fashion.” 

However brought about, I am of course charmed to 
receive your visit,” said Violet. 

“ I only just heard of the accident,” continued the 
duchess. ‘‘ Gherardi ^vas inquiring after Mr. Aylmer as I 
drove up. What an escape you had, dear Miss Cameron — 

and the unfortunate young Ah, yes, Nina, you are 

right to frown. It is too dreadful to talk about. But, at 
least, he is doing well, they tell me ?” 

“ Better than could have been expected,” Nina replied. 

The duchess uttered more flattering and pretty speeches, 
and, after a few moments, bowed herself out. 

Now, why did she come ?” questioned Violet. 

“Bah!” cried Nina, contemptuously. “She had heard 
of Aylmer’s being here. I’d w^ager my little finger she 
sees him before she leaves the house.” 

“ Oh, even she could not go so far !” 

“Who lives will see,” said Nina; “and if I were to 
live a hundred years, and she too, Giulia could never do 
anything to astonish me. Mark my words, she will visit 
Aylmer !” 

“ They must be on very intimate terras for her to risk 
such a step,” Violet answered, with a sudden haughty inflec- 
tion in her voice. 

“ Nothing of the sort. I tell you, he can’t endure her ! 
But let us talk of something else. That woman makes me 
ill ! I have a conviction she will not get through another 
season without a scandal that must put her out of the pale ; 
and I own I shall not be sorry.” 

Other visitors were received, and Nina forgot the 
duchess and her own prophecy, though it rankled in 
Violet’s mind ; and she asked herself why, since neither 
the lady nor Mr. Aylmer were anything to her, save that 
he was perforce a guest under her roof. But as this rose 
from the fact that he had risked his life on her account, to 
entertain suspicions of him would be very unworthy. 
Still, she could not help feeling that gratitude to a man 
capable of yielding to Giulia da Rimini’s fascinations would 
seem a galling yoke. 

Perhaps an hour later, the professor appeared, having 
promised to report personally to the two ladies after his 


A BOUQUET OF JESSAMINES. 47 

next visit to his patient. He entered in great wrath, ex* 
claiming : 

‘‘ I’ll not have this, you know ! If I am to cure that 
fellow, I’ll not allow his room to be poisoned by such trash i 
It must have been one of you sent them ! I expected bet- 
ter things of you both.” 

As he spoke he flung a bouquet of jessamines on the 
table between them. Nina stared contemptuously at the 
flowers for an instant, then burst into peals of laughter, 
exclaiming : 

‘‘ Giulia’s bouquet ! She had it in her belt, and the 
odor nearly suffocated me. Now, Violet, own I was right !” 

Whose bouquet ? What do you say?” growled the 
professor. 

‘‘Never mind,” said Violet, in a voice so cold and odd 
that Nina glanced at her in surprise, and stopped laughing. 
“Please throw those dreadful things out of the window, 
professor. The smell is sickening.” 

“Perfectly so,” added Nina, pretending to arrange her 
hair, but watching Violet from between her fingers. 

The professor opened a window, and flung the flowers 
away. As he returned, the silence struck him ; and he 
feared that, well as both ladies knew him, and freely as they 
encouraged his brusque modes of speech, he might this time 
have annoyed them by his excitement. 

“ Have I said something to offend you ? Don’t mind. 
You know I’m a bear ; and I’ve a horror of flowers in a 
sick-room,” he said, with a look of comical penitence on his 
ugly face, which set Nina laughing again. 

“Certainly not,” said Violet. 

“ Only don’t suspect us of such crimes,” added Nina. 
“ We’ve neither been nor sent to your patient.” 

“ Very strange !” muttered the doctor. “The sister 
saw nobody ; but then she had fallen to praying, and when 
she does that, she wouldn’t know if a whole regiment, horse 
and foot, tramped in !” 

“I don’t suppose your wretched prisoner accused us,” 
said Nina. 

“He was in no state to tell anything — muttering and 
gabbling, with his face as red as fire. No doubt there will 
be the very deuce to pay !” 

“ Let us hope the consequences will not prove serious,” 


48 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


said Violet ; and while she and the professor talked, Nina 
sat thinking. 

“ Is she offended because it was in her house Giulia be- 
haved so ? Offended she is ! It can’t be on the man’s ac- 
count, for she never saw him till the night before last ! 
Well, I’ll not tease her ; unless she mentions the matter, I 
shall not.” 

When they were left alone, Violet did not make any 
allusion to the affair ; but the next day, out of sheer idle- 
ness, Nina began turning over a visiting-list which Violet 
had been correcting from her old Florentine note-book, and 
saw a heavy black line drawn across the name — Guilia, 
Duchess da Rimini. 


CHAPTER V. 

HER FIRST VISIT. 

WEEK went by. Laurence Aylmer had been 
very ill since the day the professor found the 
flowers on his bed. He had managed during 
the doctor’s absence to disarrange his bandages 
while only partially conscious, and the result 
was a cold and high fever, which for some time left him no 
lucid interval. 

The old German actually lived in the sick-room, and 
certain physicians, who did not like him and considered 
that in taking the case into his hands he had interfered 
wnth their rights, since he pretended to be no longer a 
medical practitioner, declared that in the secrecy of that 
chamber he was trying all manner of dreadful experiments 
on the unfortunate man. 

Of course these rumors, originating with the doctors, 
grew into positive and terrible tales in the mouths of other 
people, and one energetic o!d maid from Columbia gave a 
tea ” for the express purpose of expounding her views in 
regard to the matter. She thought the American ladies 
ought to interfere in behalf of their countryman, barba- 
rously tortured, nay, slowly murdered, under the hands of 
this heartless German savant, who, to use the energetic 



HER FIRST VISIT. 


49 


female’s own words, ‘^was capable of sacrificing hecatombs 
of humanity in pursuit of what he termed the cause of 
science.” She proposed appointing a committee to wait 
upon the professor, and tell him plainljT^ that unless he would 
consent to call a consultation of physicians, they, the coun- 
trywomen of this luckless gentleman, must appeal to the 
American Minister in Rome, publish letters in the Tourist 
— call Heaven and earth to witness their protest against 
conduct which was a disgrace to the latter half of our 
glorious century. 

Many speeches were made, and a great deal of tea and 
orgeat drunk, but though numerous plans of action were 
discussed, even to an assault upon the palace and a rescuing 
bodily of the victim by the Amazons — a proposal which 
originated with a tiny withered spinster, who, in spite of 
her size, appeared as determined as if animated by the spirit 
of Penthesilea — still the meeting proved a failure, so far as 
carrying any of the projects into execution went. 

Poor Eliza Bronson heard all the news, and with bitter 
tears and mournful wails, warned her friend, and was driv- 
en nearly frantic by the laughter of Violet and Nina, who 
at once informed ' the professor, and that reckless person 
laughed far louder than they. 

Nina remained Miss Cameron’s guest. Some little im- 
prudence had inflamed her ankle again, and the professor 
condemned her to another week of repose, threatening to 
keep her in a supine position for the next three months if 
she did not obey. 

Carlo came and went. A knot of Nina’s intimate friends 
were a great deal at the house, so the little lady had amuse- 
ment ; and Violet, still beset by that inexplicable dislike 
for solitude and reflection, seemed as eager for society as 
Nina herself. 

Both good taste and sympathy caused the ladies to re- 
frain from anything which could come under the head of 
gayeties, though of course outsiders declared that ‘‘ revel- 
ings and orgies went on in the palace, while the professor’s 
victim groaned under the same roof, helpless in the octopus 
clutches of his Teutonic tormentor ” — a fine phrase which 
was conceived and uttered by the virgin who had proposed 
an onslaught of Amazons on behalf of the martyr. True, 
these re])orts of unseemly revels were contradicted by other 
tales, that Miss Cameron had been secretly married to the 
3 


50 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


sufferer, that he was not in the house, not living even, and 
that the professor was essaying some new mode of embalm- 
ing. But in Florence it is not difficult for people to believe 
a dozen stories, diametrically opposed to each other, at one 
and the same time, and it had been long since the various 
coteries had found a common subject of interest so engross- 
ing and so dramatic. ^ 

On the eighth day Aylmer was better, and Violet wen. 
that evening to a concert given by some young aspirant for 
fame, where the appearance of influential persons would Tje 
even more important than their money. She had not be- 
fore spent the evening abroad, and hesitated about leaving 
Nina to Miss Bronson’s society, which the little lady did 
not fully appreciate — Carlo being absent on a visit to an 
estate he owned near Perugia. However, Nina declared 
that if her hostess stopped at home she would render her- 
self odious, and pleaded so hard with her to go, that Violet 
changed her mind at the last moment, and accompanied 
some friends who called for her. 

Midnight had struck when she returned. As she was 
mounting the stairs, the professor looked out of the apart- 
ment on the ground-floor and called to her. 

‘‘Can I speak to you a moment ?” he inquired. 

“ Of course,” Violet said ; and bade Antonio go on and 
tell Clarice not to wait up any longer. She saw the 
professor appeared worried, and asked quickly, “ Nothing 
wrong? He — your patient is not worse?” . 

“Not seriously worse, perhaps ; but the fever has come 
back, and he has no business to have fever,” returned the 
professor, in an injured tone. “The obstinacy of human 
nature is really something stupendous ! But come in and 
sit with me, please. Miss Bronson is doubtless asleep, and 
60 can’t be shocked at the impropriety of your visiting 
a gay Lothario of sixty-seven at this late hour. I have 
sent the sister to lie down for awhile.” 

Violet laughed and yielded to his whim, as she fancied it. 

Beyond the salon they entered was a second ; then 
came the room where Aylmer lay ; at the side of this, one 
ill which a bed had been arranged for the pii'ofessor when- 
ever he chose to remain. 

The doors were open, and Violet could hear the murmur 
of a voice from the sick man’s chamber. 

“ Who is talking to him ?” she asked, in surprise. 


SEE FIRST VISIT. 


5t 


Why, that’s himself ; he’s been at it for the last half- 
hour — mutter, mutter!” growled the professor. “He gab- 
bles about seeing the carriage on the brink of the river. If 
I rouse him he answers sanely enough, but in a moment 
begins to wander again — talking about a garden — places in 
America — Lord knows what ! I thought you wouldn’t 
mind going in for a little ; perhaps your voice would 
quiet him. In that sort of partial delirium sometimes 
a mere trifle will compose a patient, if it happens to fall in 
with his delusion.” 

“ I will do so, of course,” Violet answered ; “ but are 
you sure that seeing me will not agitate him still more ? 
We are such entire strangers ” 

She paused abruptly, her utterance checked by a 
thought engrossing as it was sudden. Strangers ? Why, 
it seemed as if they had known one another for years ! 
Then she began hastily to account for this sensation : it 
rose from the fact that his accident had been caused by his 
efforts in her behalf ; from his having lain for so many 
days under her roof ; from — but the professor was speaking, 
and she had no leisure to listen to her own absurd imagin- 
ings, or seek solutions thereof. 

“That’s just it — you mustn’t startle him. You are a 
woman of brains — ach Gotti what a different w^orld it 
would be if there were more of your sort ! You can com- 
prehend what I want. You must wait till he begins again 
about a lady, and flowers, and all that nonsense ; then sit 
down by him — enter into his delusion, so you will be a part 
of it — you see ?” 

“ Yes,” Violet replied, and her voice sounded cold. 

The professor’s mention of the jessamines brought to 
her mind that rather stern criticism of the wounded man 
which she had indulged whenever she recollected Giulia da 
Rimini’s visit. The savant bad evidently forgotten his 
own outbreak and the reason of his annoyance. She had 
time to be glad of this obliyiousness on his part, to wonder 
why she was glad. Then he spoke again, and all the while, 
through the swift rush of her fancies, through the effort to 
listen to her companion’s words, she could hear the sound 
of that painful voice from the sick-room, monotonous, low, 
yet eager and troubled. 

“Of course you understand,” the professor continued 
approvingly 5 “one is always sure you can — that is the 


52 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


pleasure of dealing with a woman like you ! Come now, 
stand where he can’t see you till the right moment, then go 
in. You can quiet him — you must ! I don’t wish to give 
any narcotics ; I depend on you.” 

He shook his head fiercely at her, and, in his earnest* 
ness, seized her loose sleeve, quite unconscious of his rude- 
ness, and hurried her through the adjoining salon to the 
chamber beyond. 

Violet stood still upon the threshold and looked in ; a 
large, lofty room, whose vaulted roof added to the sense of 
space and height, decorated, like the rest of the suite, with 
furniture old as the palace itself. A lamp burning upon a 
table formed an island of light in the center of the cham- 
ber, and cast faint rays across the carved bedstead and 
damask canopy. At first Miss Cameron could distinguish 
nothing ; she closed her eyes for a few seconds. When 
she opened them, gradually the different objects became 
visible. A bronze Moor, holding a candelabra, frowned at 
her near the door ; farther on, a marble nymph peeped out 
of a niche, with a flower-vase in her hand ; the single- 
lighted candle of the Moor’s burden struck her face. She 
seemed to bestow a smirk on the African, and cast an evil 
glance at Violet from the corners of her dead eyes. 

The island of light in the middle of the room grew 
brighter ; Miss Cameron could see the bed distinctly. The 
curtains were flung back, the sick man lay motionless ; she 
caught the feverish glitter of his eyes, the worn outline of 
his countenance, and the words he uttered in that weary, 
monotonous voice were perfectly audible. 

“She promised to come — she promised ! I am so tired. 
I shall never be done counting them — she promised !” 

The professor, standing behind Violet, touched her 
shoulder in sign that she was to go forward. She stepped 
softly across the floor and sat down by the bed. The suf- 
ferer saw her, stretched out his hand aimlessly, saying : 

“ I thought you had gone away ! Don’t go ! I can 
smell the flowers now ! Ah, you have taken me into the 
garden. I was so tired of that room ; it is cool and pleas- 
ant here.” 

His wandering hand rested upon hers — he held it fast ; 
his eyes closed ; a smile parted his lips ; he lay silent for 
some minutes. The professor crept back into the idjoin- 
ing room. Violet did not stir. 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


58 


Presently Aylmer looked at her again. 

‘‘ It was very good of you to come,” he said ; I want- 
ed you so much.” 

Did he know what he was saying? He spoke so com- 
posedly that for an instant Violet thought him quite 
rational, but his next words proved her mistake. “ I saw 
the flowers — I knew when you came in — I wanted to speak 
— to ask you to stay ! Then you were gone, and the flowers 
were gone too ; the Moor stole them — he steals everything 
you send ! But you have come back now ; you have come 
back !” 

He fancied that Giulia da Rimini had returned ! He 
lifted her fingers to his lips ; a thrill of disgust shook 
Violet ; she felt degraded — he mistook her for that woman ! 
She snatched her hand away. 

‘‘ Don’t go,” he moaned ; ‘‘ don’t leave me !” 

Violet looked up and saw the professor in the doorway ; 
he made a warning signal. She must not shrink ; she must 
humor the sick man’s odious fancy ; repose might be of 
vital necessity. Whatever he was — however wicked, she 
could not refuse her aid. She let him take her hand again. 

You will stay ?” he said. She did not answer. ‘‘ She 
won’t speak ; she won’t speak !” he murmured com- 
plainingly. 

‘‘ I am here — I will stay,” she whispered, though the 
words seemed to choke her, and the touch of his fingers 
burned like fire. He talked brokenly on, each disconnected 
phrase only bringing additional proof that her angry dis- 
gust was deserved. 

“ Are you here — are you here ? Don’t you remember 
that night ? I want to tell you ! I hate that Moor ; the 
old man said he was your husband ! They are all gone 
now ! Yes, say it over — say it over !” 

And so he fell asleep with a smile on his lips, still hold- 
ing her hand fast. She dared not stir, for fear of disturb- 
ing him ; and the horror, the sense of degradation, and 
mingled therewith a sting of disappointment and pain, as if 
this stranger had been long and well known, and she had 
suddenly learned how she had deceived herself in regard to 
him, growing each instant stronger. It was all odious, 
dreadful ! 

At last he turned slightly on his pillow, and his fingers 
relaxed their grasp ; she drew hers away, rose, and went 


64 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


noiselessly out of the room, shuddering from head to foot 
as if she had escaped from something noisome, yet still 
with that sensation of pain and regret — at what ? Ah, the 
question was impossible to answer ! 

“ It has succeeded admirably,” the professor said, as he 
followed her into the farther salon. “ He will sleep for 
hours ; you managed perfectly ! A quiet night, and I shall 
be at ease about him. Yes, yes, we are on the right road 
now.” 

Violet did not reply ; she felt giddy and faint. She 
saw a carafe of water on the table, filled a glass and drank 
eagerly. 

‘‘You are tired ; you look pale,” said the professor, 
frowning at her from under his bushy eyebrows. “ Come ; 
you have done enough for this time ; go you to bed.” 

“ Good-night,” she said. 

“ I shall give you my arm up the stairs ” 

“Good heavens ! because you have two patients in the 
house, don’t think I must be ill too,” she interrupted 
with a fretfulness which she could not repress. 

“Tut, tut ! don’t contradict me !” cried the professor. 
“When I say I shall do a thing, I always do it ! I mean 
to give you my arm up the stairs.” 

Violet accepted his courtesy, just to avoid further 
words. 

“I am well satisfied,” continued the professor. “To* 
morrow our patient shall begin a new life. Fraulein, you 
are a very sensible person.” 

“I am not ; and if I could be, I wouldn’t !” exclaimed 
Violet, and then began to laugh, though she was shivering 
still. 

“ You are nervous,” pursued the professor, with a little 
disdain audible in his voice. “It is an odd thing that, 
though women can sometimes be efficient in a crisis, their 
nerves always suffer for it.” 

“ A man’s opinion !” retorted Violet. “ You may be 
wisdom incarnate, but you will never understand women, 
professor ; so you may as well give up the effort.” 

“ God forbid that I should lose my time making it !” 
said he, with pious fervor. 

They passed through the entrance-hall, and up the stairs ; 
the professor jesting and laughing in his low ponderous 
fashion — Violet trying to laugh and speak gayly in reply. 


HER - FIRST VISIT. 


55 


In the vast antechamber — large enough to hold a 
modern house — they saw Antonio, the trustworthy, fast 
asleep on a mediaeval settle, as hard and uncomfortable as 
it was picturesque and valuable. 

“ I can’t believe in your dreadful theories that men have 
been evolved from apes, but I can believe the vital princi- 
ple in that faithful creature has been in a Newfoundland 
dog,” said Violet, 

She dropped the professor’s arm, and was about to 
wake Antonio, when an exclamation from the savant 
checked her. 

‘‘ Ten thousand devils !” he growled ; but the surprise 
in his voice formed an excuse for the ejaculation. 

Violet’s eyes followed his gesture. In the doorway of 
the salon a human head appeared, wrapped in a scarlet 
shawl. Two wild orbs glared at the pair for an instant, 
then the vision vanished. 

Repeating his unseemly outburst, the professor rushed 
forward, and Violet hurried after. 

In an easy-chair sat Eliza Bronson, her head wrapped in 
the red shawl ; her right hand uplifted, and grasping an 
empty phial. 

I have poisoned myself,” she said, in a voice where 
diverse emotions found vent — fear and a sort of reproach- 
ful triumph being pre-eminent. 

Great heavens !” cried Violet. What do you 
mean ?” 

‘‘ I — have — poisoned — myself,” repeated Eliza, separat- 
ing the words by pauses, in order to give them increased 
emphasis. 

The doctor darted upon the phial, seized it, smelled it, 
and exclaimed : 

“ If you dare to have hysterics. I’ll let you die, as sure 
as my name is Schmidt !” 

‘‘ Violet, perhaps you will listen to my last words,” said 
Eliza, bestowing a glance of scorn upon the professor. 

“ Now, what do you think you have taken ?” asked he. 

“ I know ! Madame Magnoletti’s liniment ! You 
ought to be aware of its contents. It was your prescrip- 
tion,” said Eliza. 

I mean, what antidote?” 

‘‘ Everything ! It is too late ! The white of an egg — 
but that is for arsenic ! Some cold tea — no matter ! Oh, 


56 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


Violet, you were down in that man’s room ! I heard you. 
Do not deny it !” 

“ Then why didn’t you come after us ?” cried the pro- 
fessor. 

“Sir,” said she, “I can die, but I cannot be indeli- 
cate !” 

The professor smelled at the bottle again. Something 
in his face assured Violet that Miss Bronson’s fears were 
uncalled for, but the professor’s words were not reassuring. 

“ Why did you take poison ?” he asked. 

“ I had a frightful neuralgia. I caught up the phial, 
and swallowed the contents, thinking it was my mixture. 
The instant I had done so 1 perceived my error. I looked 
at the bottle,” continued Eliza, in an awful tone. “I rec- 
ognized it as that which held the march esa’s liniment, 
though how it came in my room I know not.” 

Violet regarded the professor. His face remained 
inscrutable as that of the Sphinx. Eliza leaned back in 
her chair, and gasped in majestic resignation. 

“ Salt and water,” pronounced the professor, medita- 
tively. 

“ I have taken a pint !” cried she, triumphantly. 

“ Then in a few moments you will be very sick,” said 
he ; “ at least, I hope so. If not, we will think of some 
other remedy ; but you have drunk as good a simple anti- 
dote as any. We must wait a little.” 

Eliza turned her back upon him. 

“Violet,” she said, “it is a solemn thought that before 
dawn breaks I may be where I shall hear the cherubs 
sing.” 

“ Terrible, if they scream like human cherubs,” said the 
professor. “ Why, you might as well talk about fairies as 
such personages ! Miss Bronson, you will be resolved into 
the elements — so much hydrogen, so much oxygen ” 

“ Peace, railer !” broke in Eliza. 

“ I suppose you would object to — to — afterward — I 
mean — to autopsy,” said the professor, in an insinuating 
tone, waving his right hand in the air, as fancying that it 
held a scalpel. 

“ Violet, do you hear ? — and I still living ! In my very 
hearing he proposes that sacrilege !” moaned Eliza. 

“ My dear professor, do tell her that she is not poi- 
soned,” said Violet, appealingly. 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


57 


He held out the bottle in answer, with a look so tragic 
that Eliza began to realize the reality of what she was 
rather playing at, yet from first to last had been in earnest 
about — and though this is a very unintelligible sentence, no 
other language would express her feelings. 

Do not ask him to deceive me,’’ sobbed she. 

“ No, no,” said the professor. “ But later, when it’s all 
over, when your so-called self is resolved into the ele- 
ments ” 

Heathen !” groaned Eliza, drying her eyes. A peti- 
tion for him to make some further essay of skill had been 
upon her lips, but his heretical speech roused her wrath 
and brought back her courage. 

After that,” pursued the professor, unmoved and 
deaf, ‘‘ would you permit, in the cause of science, that 
autopsy ” 

Eliza interrupted him by a shriek. 

I’ll not be autop — top — there’s no such word as autop- 
ticized,” she cried, with her school-teaching instincts strong 
upon her even then. But I mean, whatever the word to 
express it may be, that my lifeless frame shall not become 
the victim of your sacrilegious experiments. Unless my 
friend — she whom I have called my friend — will promise, I 
leave her house this instant. There must be some roof 
beneath which my corpse can lie safe from your nefarious 
designs.” ^ 

Schnapps !” exclaimed the professor, so abruptly and 
with such energy that he startled Violet even ; as for Eliza, 
she bounded in her chair as if she had been electrified. 

‘‘ What ?” she shrieked, not catching the word, and 
afraid he had pronounced some dreadful sentence of doom. 

“ A sure remedy. I never thought of it till now. Wait, 
I’ll be back in a minute !” and away rushed the professor. 

Eliza rolled her head and winked her eyes. This sud- 
den excitement on the professor’s part made her certain she 
was in bad case indeed. 

“Violet,” she said faintly, “think how it would be with 
me if at a moment like this I had not a sure faith, a cer- 
tainty of being among the elect, to give me support.” 

Whatever the dose she had swallowed, it had evidently 
affected Eliza’s brain. Violet hastened into the anteroom 
when she heard the old German’s step. 

•“ In the name of goodness, what has the poor creature 

3 * 


58 


HER FIRST VISIT. 


taken?” she asked, meeting the professor with a square 
bottle under his arm. 

‘‘ Nothing of consequence,” he answered. ‘‘There was 
laudanum in it ; you know even a few drops affect her. 
The dose has gone to her head, and now I propose to send 
a glass of schnapps after it ; then she will go to bed and 
sleep like a top.” 

“ And — and your patient ?” Violet asked hesitatingly. 

“Oh, he is still sound — likely to stay so. The sister is 
sitting by him,” said the professor. “At present, our duty 
is towards your friend Elizabeth — Eliza, or whatever — and 
do our duty we must.” He hurried into the salon, crying, 
“Here we are ! This is the little fat gentleman that means 
to save your life, my Miss Bronson;” and he brandished 
the square bottle before the spinster’s eyes. 

“ What is he giving me ?” moaned Eliza, sleepily. “ Vio- 
let, I feel a strange drowsiness, I see double. Oh ! oh ! it 
is the end !” 

“ Dominus vobiscum,^'* chanted the professor, in a deep 
bass voice, as he began to pour the sparkling liquid into a 
goblet. 

“ Do go away,” said Violet, and took the bottle from 
him, concealing her face so that Eliza might not be shocked 
or hurt by her irrepressible laughter. 

She mixed a little of the spirits with a judicious quan- 
tity of water, and gave it to the spinster, who drank, and 
in a few moments grew both courageous and dizzy. 

“ Sir, you have saved my life,” she said, turning towards 
the professor with majesty tempered by tenderness, while 
the old sinner stood looking at her and rubbing his hands 
in glee ; “ you have saved my life — I thank you ! I abhor 
your principles, I repudiate your doctrines, but I am grate- 
ful for your care.” 

“Good !” chuckled the professor ; “ schnapps forever !” 

“Violet,” continued Eliza, “ I love you, but I shudder 
over your future ! I warn you now that if you linger in 
this unhallowed land, and if you do not relinquish Mari- 
olatry, you will lose your soul — lose your soul. and 

she pointed a finger of dreadful warning at the professor, 
“ his is lost already.” 

She disappeared ; went straight to her room, and as the 
professor had prophesied, slept sweetly till morning. 


LA BELLE SAMABITAINE. 


59 


CHAPTER VI. 

LA BELLE SAMARITAINE. 

NLY the next day Giulia da Rimini again pre- 
sented herself. 

Miss Cameron was seated with Nina in the 
salon she had appropriated to her guest, and, as 
ill-luck would have it, Carlo had entered a few 
moments before. 

Nina had a headache, and Violet was bathing her fore- 
head with eau-de-Cologne, when her maid brought in the 
duchess’s card. The marchesa made a little grimace as she 
read the name, and handed the bit of coronetted paste- 
board to her friend, whispering : 

“ One must receive her !” 

‘‘The visit is for you,” Violet answered in the same 
tone, rising as she spoke ; “ there is no reason why I 
should stop. She does not come to see me — I have not 
returned her call.” 

But Nina caught her dress and pulled her down upon the 
sofa again, with an eager, supplicating look, while her lips 
inaudibly framed the entreaty : 

“ Stay — do stay I” 

“ What are you two talking about ?” called Carlo from 
the table, where he sat trying some combination of cards ; 
“ who is your visitor ?” 

“ He will go away with her if we don’t let her come 
up,” Nina murmured rapidly. “If you vex her, she will 
punish me. Wait till I am gone before you take any de- 
cisive step.” 

Violet stared in astonishment, but the tears in the little 
woman’s eyes softened her, and she bowed acquiescence. 

“ Have you both lost your tongues ? ” asked the 
marchese. 

Violet treated him to a contemptuous glance which 
escaped his short sight, but Nina caught it and muttered : 

“ Oh, don’t !” Then she added aloud to her maid, 
“ Tell madamo I am not well this morning, but I will see 
lier.” 




60 


LA BELLE SAMAEITAmE. 


What madame ?” demanded the persistent Carlo. 

The Duchess da Rimini ! As you hate women’s gossip 
you had better run away,” said Violet, quite savagely. 

Carlo laughed, put up his glass, glanced at the speaker, 
and then at Nina. 

“ Heaven help us !” cried he ; ‘‘ how have I offended 
you. Miss Cameron? You snubbed me in such a wife-like 
tone that I had to look twice to be certain it \vas not my 
legal guardian who spoke.” 

“Your legal guardian is more amiable than I,” returned 
Violet, affecting to laugh, for Nina’s eyes, full of supplica- 
tion, were still upon her ; “ I am in one of ray bad moods, 
when anything in the shape of a question irritates me.” 

“ Carlo,” said Nina, speaking so gayly that Violet won- 
dered at her self-control, “ if you know any one of her ad- 
mirers who means to risk his fate to-day, pray warn him 
not to venture.” 

“It would only be Christian charity,” he replied, let bis 
lorgnon drop, and went back to his cards. 

If there had been, as Violet fancied, a little suspicion in 
his face, it died out when Nina spoke in that natural way, 
accompanying her words with one of her childish bursts of 
laughter. 

“ So,” thought Violet, “ Master Carlo has teased her, has 
he? Well, he never shall again, on that woman’s account ! 
Make your visit, madame the duchess ! I never expected 
to be glad to see you ; but this time I am — I am indeed !” 

She rose, Avent over to the table and stood behind the 
marchese’s chair, apparently absorbed in the cards spread 
out upon the cloth, and asking some question in regard to 
them. 

Madame da Rimini was announced, and swept into the 
room with her customary slow, majestic tread. 

“ My poor Nina — my dearest Nina ! Still tied fast to 
that odious sofa ! Heavens, it is too cruel !” she cried, 
moving towards the couch. 

There was the sound of a kiss ; Nina had leisure to 
respond, and the duchess to utter more sweet, condoling 
words, before Violet gave any sign of having observed the 
visitor’s entrance or moved so as to permit Carlo to rise. 
She turned ; the ducliess was regarding her, endeavoring 
to look as if now she had leisure to see Miss Cameron, but 
with another expression visible in her face, try as she might 


LA BELLE SAMABITAUSTE, 


61 


to hide it, a certain wondering fear if it were possible a 
slight could befall her. 

Violet made a low obeisance ; but in spite of her 
gracious manner, no woman could have failed to understand 
her hostile intentions. 

“ Si matinale et si helle^ madame la duchesse ! ” she cried. 

How good of you to come so often to see the marchesa in 
her imprisonment ! You are a true sister of charity in 
your kindness to the wounded and suffering.” 

A faint quiver disturbed the duchess’s firm mouth, but 
almost imperceptible as it was. Nina caught it. She waited 
in a thrill of pleasurable expectation. Violet meant to deal 
the odious creature some cruel blow, and Violet would do 
it neatly and well — the Russian could trust her. 

But though the duchess feared that her little secret had 
been discovered, she did not intend to be stabbed by this 
impertinent American, if her well-trained skill could parry 
the thrust. 

“ A visit to so old and valued a friend as the marchesa 
could scarcely come under that head, chere demoiselle,'^'' she 
replied, with a supercilious little smile which put Violet 
outside the pale of such intirnacjt as pointedly as words 
could have done. 

The two women of course understood her meaning, but 
it was Greek to Carlo in his masculine dullness, though he 
perceived that matters were not going smoothly between 
the duchess and Violet. He glanced from one to the other, 
then stole a furtive look at his wife ; but Nina, busy 
arranging her cushions, appeared as innocent as a dove. 

‘‘ No matter what head her visit comes under, I can’t 
see what I have done that the duchess should refuse to 
notice me,” he said hastily, moving forward as he spoke. 

“ Ah, are you there, marchese ?” returned she in her 
indolent voice, vouchsafing him a glance very different 
from that which she had bestowed upon Violet. Sunshine 
was not softer than the smile he received ; a lance not 
sharper than the look shot at Miss Cameron. She sank into 
a seat and extended him the tips of her daintily-gloved 
fingers, which he kissed in his graceful Italian fashion. 

“ And what news of the match ?’*' she asked eagerly. 

Is it to come off or not ?” 

‘‘ Yes ; I believe it is decided for Saturday.” 

What match ?” Nina inquired. 


62 


LA BELLE 8AMARITAINE. 


Between Marco Goldoni’s horse and one of Harry 
Stanhope’s,” Carlo explained. 

‘‘And I have dozens and dozens of gloves on it,” cried 
the duchess, in the same pretty, eager way. “ Marchese, 
do toll me that Marco’s gray will win !” 

But, interested as she appeared, Nina knew she had 
rushed into the subject merely to hinder Miss Cameron 
from speaking. The little woman chafed inwardly that the 
thrust she felt confident Violet had meant to deal should 
be so easily prevented, and for Carlo to have aided the 
duchess, even unintentionally, doubled Nina’s annoyance. 

During some moments the trotting-match was enthu« 
siastically talked of ; Nina took her share in the conversa- 
tion, but Violet sat aloof, the visitor’s own words giving 
her the right to consider that she had no more to do with 
playing hostess than if she had met the lady under the 
marchesa’s roof. 

Now, if Giulia had left matters on this fooling, she 
might perhaps have rendered it impossible for Miss Came- 
ron to hit her with a buttonless foil ; but that lady’s cour- 
teous, yet palpable negation of any concern in her visit, 
irritated the Sicilian beyond endurance, and urged her 
imp udently on to be the assailant in a second clashing of 
swords, convinced that if the American had been cognizant 
of her little escapade, she would have betrayed the fact on 
their first encounter. 

. Unfortunately for Giulia she did not understand 
Violet, and rushed on her fate — that of being exposed 
before Carlo. Some remark of Miss Cameron’s, in answer 
to a question from Nina, afforded the duchess a delightful 
opportunity to sneer at America and the freedom granted 
unmarried women in that country. 

“ It seems odd to us Latins,” said she in her sweetest 
voice, and one must have heard an Italian utter a mecJian- 
cete to form an idea of the exquisite perfection of tone and 
manner, “but we are so antiquated, so prejudiced, so igno- 
rant, we European women, compared with the dazzling 
transatlantic beauties !” She addressed Nina, but by an 
indescribable something, for she made no gesture, rendered 
the compliment to Ai]qerican women a tribute of special 
admiration and delicate mockery to Violet Cameron her- 
self. “ How one envies ''the brilliant creatures ! One 
might admit their supremacy in point of loveliness and 


LA BELLE SAMARITAINE. 


6S 

wit, and still be patient, but it is the liberty allowed 
them which irks us, held in bondage by tiresome old 
customs.” 

“Yes, yes,” cried Nina, just to push Giulia forward to 
her doom, ready, Russian-like, to enjoy her enemy’s 
defeat the more' from having feared that it would fail. 

“ You are right, duchess ; but still, would such freedom 
suit our ideas ?” 

“Ah, that is the question ! I am afraid we glory in 
our slavery to custom ; it * is ingrained in our natures. 
Still, one envies the Americans all the same ! One 
would like to hate them, but, being women, we appreciate 
their fascinations too thoroughly to do that.” 

“ Upon my word, Fleur Violette, that pretty speech 
deserves your best courtesy,” cried Carlo, really believing 
that the duchess desired to be especially agreeable, 

“Oh, a man!” was Nina’s thought. 

“But, duchess,” asked Violet, “what do you so par- 
ticularly envy us Americans ?” 

“ I have said — the freedom granted our sex in your 
native land.” 

“ Surely, once married, an Italian woman is free 
enough,” said Violet ; and the duchess saw' her own error, 
but could not remedy it. 

“ When freedom comes too late!” sighed she, hoping-*^' 
to silence Violet by the difficulty of finding any answer 
with a sting in it which w^ould not appear a rudeness. 

“ How ?” exclaimed Miss Cameron. “ Freedom cannot 
come too late !” 

Giulia shook her stately head, saying : 

“ Ah, Nina darling, mademoiselle argues as an unmarried 
lady naturally would ! She does not know those dreadful 
tyrants as we do,” waving two fingers towards Carlo, and 
giving him a smile, as she spoke. 

“ Oh,” said Carlo, “ Miss Cameron is a cruel, icy-hearted 
creature, utterly indifferent even to attractions like mine.” 

“ There may be a reason for that,” laughed the duchess 
“ You must not forget the interesting invalid below stairs ! 

By the way, how is Mr. Aylmer this morning ?” 

“Better,” said Nina and Carlo, speaking at once 

“ Better,” repeated Violet, laughing gayly as she spoke. 

“ But take care, duchess, that you content yourself with 


64 


LA BELLE SAMARITAINE, 


inquiring here ! That cross old professor is lying in wait ! 
Oh, if you had seen him the other day dash up here, and 
shake your pretty bunch of jessamines in our faces, accus- 
ing us of trying to poison his patient, when Nina could not 
leave her sofa, and I could not dream of intruding into the 
lion’s den, being an American woman in a foreign land — - 
and unmarried !” 

Blush ? Yes, the duchess did, through all her rouge ! 
Carlo gave her one furious glance, and began to rearrange 
his cards ; Nina nursed her foot, in order to hide her face, 
conscious that its triumph would not bear exposure ; Violet 
sat calm as a summer morning. 

Marchese,” she added, “ did I not tell you the duchess 
was a good Samaritan ? But, alas, in our century Samari- 
tans meet with a poor reward ! The professor still vows that 
her kind visit to Mr. Aylmer retarded his recovery by at 
least a fortnight.” 

The duchess — not quick-witted, though shrewd — tried 
to laugh ; Carlo made a still more miserable pretense at 
merriment ; Nina remained occupied with her foot ; Violet’s 
smiling serenity knew no change. 

“Warning!” cried Carlo, somewhat too bitterly. 
“Don’t play the Samaritan — one is not appreciated.” 

“ Don’t be found out, you mean, else the professors fall 
upon you,” Miss Cameron gayly amended, with a glance at 
the duchess which sent the Sicilian’s blood up to boiling- 
heat. 

Before any additional words could be spoken by either 
of the group, Antonio announced fresh visitors — witty Lady 
Harcourt, bringing in her train Gherardi, Harry Stanhope, 
and several other men. 

“ I knew if we sent up our names we should not be ad- 
mitted,” cried her ladyship. “ So I persuaded these cowards 
to help me storm the citadel.” 

There followed a torrent of merry talk. In the midst 
of it, after trying unsuccessfully to take a part, appear at 
ease, and at the same time soften Carlo by sundry beseech- 
ing glances, to which he, obdurate as a Trojan, paid no at- 
tention, Madame da Rimini rose. 

“ Going to leave poor Nina already ?” questioned Violet, 
sweetly. 

The duchess turned on her. The enamel of politeness 


LA BELLE SAMARITAINE^ 


65 


cracked in the heat of her wrath, and gave a glimpse of the 
coarse virago under. 

“ I have a thousand things to do,” she replied ; and her 
voice was so sharp that everybody looked up, but she strug- 
gled in vain to subdue nature. ‘‘I shall come again when 
I may be of some use to iny friend.” 

“ Samaritaine tonjours^"^ said Violet, and that Avretched 
Carlo laughed, looking full in the duchess’s face the while. 

The luckless Giulia stood dumb for an instant. 

“ Stanhope,” said Carlo, “give madame your arm to her 
carriage ; but take Paulo with you to protect her from 
your fascinations, and to make Lady Ilarcourt and my wife 
say., bitter things of her, out” of sheer jealousy, on account 
of her cavaliers.” 

Now the Englishman was elderly and unimpressionable, 
and Paulo was the duchess’s own brother-in-law, whom she 
hated with a hatred surpassing even that of women. 

Nina metaphorically flapped the wings of her soul in 
delight, but poor Carlo was only a man, and hastened to 
impair the perfect retribution he had brought about. 

“ I am master of the house for the nonce,” he added, 
“and cannot leave Miss Cameron exposed to the Aviles and 
enormities of these other male monsters.” 

“ Oh, you goose !” Nina mentally groaned. 

The duchess, so pale AAuth anger that the spots of rouge 
showed like a blotch on either cheek, sgized the advantage 
given by Carlo’s superfluous words. 

“ Miss Cameron Avill lend you to me to the foot of the 
stairs,” said she. “ I am afrafd of the dangerous Colonel, 
and Paulo came on purpose to make love to Nina. You 
can’t in decency refuse him three minutes free from your 
Argus eyes.” 

“ Mille diahles ! she has the best of it after all !” 
thought the little Russian. 

But the Muscovite reckoned defeat without taking into 
consideration the American reserve, bent on punishing the 
offender to the uttermost. 

“ Go, Carlo, my friend,” said Violet ; “ see the duchess 
safe to her carriage. The professor lies in wait for her, 
and if she so much as looks towards the door of the den 
where he is torturing his victim, he Avill fall upon her.” 

“ What, what !” cried Lady Harcourt. “ Giulia, have 


66 


LA BELLE BAMABITAINB. 


you boen trying to prevent that New World barbarian from 
dying in peace 

“ On the contrary,” said Violet, quick as a flash, she 
went in the other day and laid sweet jessamines on his pil- 
low, and the professor nearly murdered Nina and poor me, 
just because we were women too, and the offender — la belle 
Samaritame — had escaped, and he found only us innocenrs 
to visit his wrath upon.” 

In many circles the bit of comedy might have been 
wasted, but these types of Florentine society appreciated 
the scene as thoroughly as ever a knot of Parisian critics 
enjoyed the most delicately-drawn exhibition of character 
in one of Victorien Sardou’s plays. 

The duchess knew it, and the replique rested with her. 
To remain silent would be to damn herself. Florence 
might pass over Impropriety, but not stupidity. And, 
difficult as the situation was in itself, her fierce anger in- 
creased its difficulties. But she must answer. She could 
be coarse if wit failed ; at least the men would believe 
what she said witty, just on account of its coarseness. 

I am not afraid of your professor,” said she ; ‘‘I have 
already appeased him. I agreed to give Carlo up to you, 
dear Miss Cameron, and to let Nina have the American.” 
But the quizzical glances directed towards her drove her 
on to add : To ratify the bargain, the professor is to sup 

with me on Sunday night. Will you all come ? Lady 
Harcourt, promise in the general name.” 

“ I promise,” returned my lady, “promise for all. We 
shall not forget.” 

“ Au revoivy dear,” said the duchess, and kissed Violet’s 
cheek. 

Slie floated out on the marchese’s arm, and the instant 
the door closed Lady Harcourt exclaimed : 

“ I don’t understand the mot of the charade, but, great 
heavens ! Violet Cameron, you must have hit her hard 
when she was pushed to the extreme of giving a supper !” 

“Don’t understand the motP^ cried Gherardi. “Well, 
I fancy poor Aylmer would ” 

“Hush!” broke in her ladyship. “We may be scan- 
dalous in Florence, but a sick man’s room and his female 
visitors are sacred — silence, evil tongue !” 

Going down stairs, the duchess for a little talked any 
nonsense that would come into her head, just to give it 


LA BELLE BAMAEITAIWE. 


67 


time to stop whirling, then wondered quickly what explana- 
tion would be best, or rather least hurtful to her cause, and 
ended by ignoring the matter. 

“ Oh, marchese,” she said, I have to go to that dread- 
ful railway man about the dividends ; can’t you be good- 
natured, and bully him for me 

“I could have done so last week,” retorted he ; “ but 
Gresham and I quarreled yesterday. I only know one 
person who could soften him, that’s Aylmer — but he is 
too ill.” 

The speech was not bad for a man’s effort, but it gave 
the duchess a chance. 

Cruel !” she cried, released his arm, and dropped into 
an attitude of dignified melancholy. “ You could hear me 
insulted — you can try to wound me after !” 

“The odor of jessamine always turns my stomach,” said 
Carlo. 

“ Tlien luckily I did not find you that day,” exclaimed 
the duchess, with a burst of timthfulness wonderfully well 
done. “I did go into the creature’s room. The doors 
were open — I thought I heard your voice. I wanted to tell 
you I was sorry for having teased you that last evening. 
But you w^ere not there. I ran out — the bouquet must 
have fallen from my corsage. Oh, that wretched, mali- 
cious woman !” 

. Carlo waited calmly till she had finished, then extended 
his arm anew, saying only : 

“ Shall I tell your people to drive to Gresham’s 
office ?” 

The duchess shut her lips hard to keep from panting, 
like a person who had mounted a steep hill too fast. Carlo 
put her hand in his arm and led her on. 

“ WTiere to ?” he asked, as they reached the court. 

“ Horae,” she answered, faintly ; then, making a violent 
effort to recover herself and speak playfully, she added, “If 
you like to come. I’ll give you some punch, instead of Eng- 
lish four-o’clock tea.” 

“ I am heart-broken ; but I promised to sit awhile with 
poor Aylmer,” returned he, and helped her into the car- 
riage. 

From a window which overlooked the courtyard, that 
malicious Gherardi watched the pair and cried, utterly 
regardless of the marchesa’s presence : 


68 


LA BELLE SAMAItITAINE. 


** He goes — he does not go ! Which side do you take, 
Lady Harcourt ; and how many pairs of gloves upon it 

“He goes!” exclaimed Stanhope. “Fifty pounds to 
ten !” 

“You have lost,” said Lady Harcourt, who had reached 
the window ; “ and you are fitly punished for speaking !” 

Everybody was gone at last ; the raarchesa and Violet 
were alone. 

You angel 1” cried Kina ; “ but oh, you have made a 
tendble enemy — Silician — take care !” 

“ CheP’* returned Violet, with an accent perfectly 
Italian and a disregard of consequences purely Anglo- 
Saxon. 

“ I had been a little jealous, I will admit now,” pursued 
Kina ; “ it was the first time — it will be the last where 
Giulia is concerned ! JMy dear. Carlo will never forgive 
the blow to his vanity ; she had written him a letter only 
that morning.” 

“ He cared nothing for her ; you cannot think he did !” 

“ Ko, no ; not in earnest — but he is a man ! Howe\^r, 
it is ended, thanks to you. If ever I can repay you, I vow 
— no, I won’t, for women always break their oaths.” 

“ Don’t repeat that stale old slander,” said Violet ; 
“ not women, only the make-believes.” 

“ But I love you ! Let me hug you, this instant ! I 
never was troubled about him before ; though, if I repeat 
that so often, you will not believe me. Welt, you have 
cured him ! Oh, the cat ! she will never dupe him now — 
but you — you — oh, my dear !” 

“ Bah !” said Violet ; “ did Giulia da Rimini suppose 
she was a match for us ? Let her try to punish me — we 
shall see ! In the meantime, my love, we will have some 
tea, just to get the taste of her name out of our mouths.” 


DEAD AS PHARAOK 


69 


CHAPTER VIL 

DEAD AS PHARAOH. 

ISS CAMERON did not like to think of her visit 
to the sick-room, for each time she did so the 
circumstances connected therewith seemed to 
increase in significance. Many of her sex would 
have contented themselves with expending cen- 
sure on the duchess, but this was contrary to Violet’s creed, 
which recognized the injustice of condemning a woman 
and letting the man go scot free. 

Still she rejoiced at having punished Giulia. She de- 
tested exhibitions of spite, and would have scorned to em- 
ploy them in her own behalf ; but in this instance her con- 
duct was justified by its motive : she had acted in defense 
of her friend — had triumphed too. Only the day before 
the duchess’s supper, an opportunity offered of proving 
this. 

Lady Harcourt called at the house to leave some w’on- 
derful remedy, for which she had sent to England, and 
which w'as to cure Nina’s ankle in a magical fashion. Violet 
and the marchese had been out on horseback, and came in 
just as her ladyship had risen to take leave. 

“ I can’t even stop to say ‘ How do you do,’ she said, 
“ for I have to go to a breakfast, a concert, and into 
the bargain sell a picture for a young painter dear to my 
soul, who is dying of consumption.” 

“ Occupation enough for one morning, certainly,” re- 
turned Violet. 

“ I shall see you both to-morrow night,” continued 
Lady Harcourt. “Remember, Giulia gives us a supper! 
Never, not even when presented to his gracious majesty on 
ray seventeenth birthday, was I in such excitement, and I 
do not expect to be again if I should live a thousand years. 
Dear, blessed Giulia never gave a supper before and will 
never give another, so I mean the affair to be memorable.” 

“ If she dies when the bills come in, her death will rest 
on your conscience,” said Carlo. 

“ There will be no bills, caro replied her ladyship. 



70 


DEAD AS PHARAOH. 


‘‘ Every restaurateur^ from Doney down to the lowest tyro> 
knows your charming enslaver too well to send so much as 
a madeltine to her house, unless jjaid in advance.” 

“Not even a Madeleine^:>e;?/Y6;i^e.^” asked Violet. 

“She might consider the offering personal,” rejoined 
Carlo. 

“She will be one herself, you wicked American witch — 
is already ; not on account of her sins, but her rashness in 
proposing the supper,” added Lady Harcourt, laughing. 

“ She could prove her penitence and avoid the feast by 
entering a convent,” said Violet. 

“ Don’t condemn her to that,” cried Nina. “At least, 
give her the privilege of a monastery.” 

“She will get out of the dilemma without adopting any 
such extreme measures,” said Carlo. 

“Not this time !” returned Lady Harcourt, triumph- 
antly. “ I have written her three notes and sent several 
men to ask the hour — she can’t escape. I told her I should 
bring some friends whom I had already invited to my 
house.” 

“ That is fiendish cruelty,” said Violet. 

“On your part,” retorted my lady. “You forced her 
into giving the supper, Violet Cameron. You put her in a 
corner, and she had to eat you or be eaten in order to get 
out. She chose the latter alternative. But wait, my dear. 
Giulia will pay you before the winter is over, or rather, 
make you pay, supper and all !” 

“ Really !” laughed Violet. “ How am I in fault ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know ; I ask no questions, I await the 
course of events. I am reasonably fond of you, I adore 
her — pa va sans dire ! If she poisons you I’ll come to the 
funeral, I promise that.” And off my lady ran, pausing in 
the doorway long enough to add, “ I shall stop down stairs 
to inquire after poor Aylmer, but the professor need not be 
vexed, for I have no jessamines to leave, and no reputation. 
I say that to save you the trouble.” 

“ Supper indeed !” quoth Carlo. “I know one person 
who will not be deluded.” 

“ But you will go — you must,” said Nina; “and you 
too, Violet.” 

“There is no necessity in my case. The duchess made 
it so evident she was not visiting me the day she gave the 
invitation, that 1 am absolved from any part therein. But 


DEAD AS PHARAOH. 


71 


Carlo is not, and for once in the annals of anybody’s his- 
tory, pleasure will be united with duty.” 

“ Tlien haye some refreshment ready for me when I get 
back. I shall be starved if I trust to what I get there,” 
cried Carlo. 

EntenduP'* said Violet. ‘‘But be sure you appear in 
time to partake of it, though Circe and all her nymphs 
stand in the way.” 

“ I am sick of Circe, and I hate her nymphs,” rejoined 
Carlo. 

Nina glanced at Violet from the corners of her beauti- 
ful almond-shaped eyes. Carlo was looking at his wife, but 
he lost the glance, though Violet, whose head was half 
turned away, caught it distinctly. If the married pair 
lived to the age of the patriarchs. Carlo would never be 
permitted to dream that Nina had for an instant been jeal- 
ous of the duchess. Indeed, while this by-play went on, his 
thoughts ran in this fashion : 

“I swear that little wife of mine is the daintiest, sweet- 
est, most charming creature in the world. It is ridiculous 
that I could have been attracted by that great coarse 
Rimini — I never was !” 

And, though neither of the ladies were observing him, 
so far as he knew, both were as cognizant of his reflections 
as if he had put them into spoken language. _ 

Carlo’s fancy for the duchess, already on the wane when 
her misadventure occurred, had been killed outright dead 
as Pharaoh. 

He went to the famous supper which would supply 
Lady Harcourt with gibes and jests during the whole sea- 
son. There was a mayonnaise and weak punch with the 
sugar left out, and the duchess informed her guests that 
one glass of punch would do nobody tny harm, and nobody 
was tempted to try a second. 

But beggarly as the feast appeared to the invited, the 
expense rankled in Giulia’s mind. She would without hesi- 
tation lavish thousands of francs upon her dress, or lose 
them at cards — would in both cases, if impossible to avoid 
the necessity, pay her debts with a reasonable degree of 
resignation, but in spite of this she was .miserly beyond 
belief. So she had two causes far virulent hatred against 
Violet, and positively she hated her worse for having unin- 
tentionally forced her to give the supper thai\ for deliber- 


72 


DEAD AS PHAEAOK 


ately exposing her to Carlo. She did not care about him, 
but he had lately come into possession of a large sum of 
ready money. The duchess wanted money, was terri- 
bly cramped this season, and she had meant him to pay 
certain debts, the creditors for which were importunate 
creatures who gave her no ])eace. 

A caprice for Laurence Aylmer she had, and a singularly 
strong one, insensible as he seemed to her fascinations. She 
had been confident the day she entered his rooms that she 
could do so with impunity. 

When she went to the house she had not dreamed there 
would be a possibility of seeing him, but as she was de- 
scending the stairs, she perceived that the doors of the 
ground-floor apartment were open — not a soul in sight. 

The duchess peeped into the first salon — empty. She 
passed on. In the second room the sister knelt before the 
statue of some saint, her head buried in her hands, so deeply 
absorbed in prayer that she was lost to all sublunary sur- 
roundings. Giulia noiselessly crossed the carpeted floor 
and gained the sick room. 

Aylmer slept, his head supported high upon the pillows ; 
the open collar of his night-shirt exposing the graceful neck 
and the outlines of the muscular shoulders. 

The woman crept up to the bed, leaned over, and pressed 
her lips upon his throat. The caress roused the wounded 
man ; he opened his great eyes, into which a sudden fever- 
ish brightness rushed, and half raised himself, uttering 
some incoherent exclamation. She believed that he recog- 
nized her, but she heard a step in the room at the side of 
the chamber, and fled, afraid of discovery — dropping the 
bouquet of jessamines on his pillow as she hurried away. 

She ran out just in time to escape the professor, ran 
through the salon where th^ sister still knelt, and reached 
the outer door, but before she could cross the threshold, 
met Antonio. 

“ I have made a most unfortunate blunder,” she said 
quickly; “I thought the Marchesa Magnoletti was estab- 
lished in this apartment ! Luckily neither the sick man 
nor his nurse saw me. Say nothing about my mistake, if 
you please ; it is most annoying to me and as she spoke, 
she actually put ten francs in his hand ! She would almost 
rather have submitted to the loss of one of her perfect 
teeth, but there was no escape. 


DEAD A8 PHARAOH. 


73 


During the ensuing fortnight Miss Cameron’s visits to 
the sick-room continued very frequent. 

The professor would come for her, and she could not 
refuse his request ; indeed, there was no reason why she 
should, save the personal shrinking caused by her belief 
that the patient mistook her for Giulia Rimini, since he 
babbled about the jessamines and her sudden disappear- 
ance. Why had she gone — why ? And did she remem- 
ber — 

What ? The often-begun sentence could never get itself 
finished. His mind was always unable to seize one special 
incident that he desired to recall, though it haunted his 
fancy with wearisome persistency. 

I can’t tell it — I can’t tell it !” he would say, in a de- 
spairing tone, then sometimes become vexed that she did 
not help him, and cry : ‘‘You could give me the word, and 
you will not ; you are cruel — cruel !” 

But the instant he said this he regretted it, and would 
snatch her hands and press his fevered lips on them, ex- 
claiming : 

“ I did not mean that ; you know I did not ! Say you 
are sure I did not mean it !” 

Violet could neglect no effort to quiet him. The pro- 
fessor told her frankly that the humoring of his fancies 
might have a great effect upon his recovery. Indeed, if 
she hesitated about letting the sick man hold her hand, or 
kept him waiting for an answer to his eager questions, she 
would immediately become aware of the professor’s head 
thrust in at the door, his lynx-eyes glaring at her from 
under their bushy brows. Nor did he content himself with 
glaring ; he did not scruple even to shake his fist at her, 
while he stood on one leg and waved the other in the air 
like an impatient Mercury preparing for flight. 

Sometimes in the midst of her pity and annoyance — her 
inexplicable bitterness towards the patient — her anger at 
herself for such emotion — a fit of laughter would seize 
Violet, forcing her to bury her head in the counterpane to 
smother the ill-timed merriment which hurt her cruelly all 
the while. To catch the absurd side of the situation, yet 
comprehend so clearly its grave aspect, seemed like regard- 
ing a dismal tragedy and seeing some evil-disposed imp 
thrust a grotesque caricature thereof close at its side. 

On a certain evening the professor’s patience, never his 
4 


74 


DEAD AS PHARAOH. 


strong point — a thing noticeable both in great savants and 
great saints — had been completely exhausted by his patient’s 
having delirium when he ought to be sane, and behaving in 
every particular just the opposite of what was his obvious 
duty. So when the doctor heard the outer doors open to 
admit Miss Cameron on her return from the opera, he 
dashed into the entrance-hall. In his haste he nearly fell 
over the lady, and was freshly irritated by the burst of 
laughter wherewith she acknowledged his presence ; stand- 
ing there so beautiful in her white draperies, that the pro- 
fessor could not decide which emotion predominated in his 
soul — a wicked desire to shake her, or a ridiculous impulse 
to go on his knees, as if one of the angelic beings, concern- 
► ing whose existence be affected such doubts in his discus- 
sions with Eliza Bronson, bad suddenly appeared before 
him. 

“ What have I done that you should try to bring my 
ill-spent existence to an abrupt close by running over me ?” 
Miss Cameron asked. 

“Done!” thundered the professor. “ Everybody does 
the very thing that is out of place and absurd !” 

“ Witness your trying to crush me when I enter my 
house,” laughed Violet. 

“I am not talking about myself,” he grumbled. “ It is 
no matter about me !” 

“And no matter if I am broken in pieces, I suppose !” 
returned she, still laughing. 

“Oh, very well ! If you can do nothing better than 
sneer, and behave like — like — well, like a woman — acA, mein 
Gott^ there is no other comparison serves — then I’ll leave 
you !” thundered the professor. 

“ First you had better tell me what is the matter,” said 
Violet. 

‘^Matter!” he echoed. “Everything — except, indeed, 
what ought to happen ! I swear by the river Styx and the 
northern god Thor, that never, never — if I live to be old as 
Methuselah, and visionary as Eliza Bronson’s St. Paul — 
will I ever again take the charge of an American ! No, 
not if we were the only two people left on this terrestrial 
globe !” 

“ I know what ails you,” said Violet. “ You have had 
no supper.” 


DEAD AS PHARAOE. 


75 


‘‘I wonder when I could have found an instant to snatch 
a morsel !” cried he. 

Go up stairs, and you shall have many morsels — tooth- 
some and indigestible as any that even a German cook 
could devise. Antonio, take good care of the professor, 
and see he has some beer,” she added, looking over her 
shoulder towards that personage, who stood secretly 
smiling at the irate savant. I will sit with your patient 
while you are gone, Esculapius. I suppose that is what 
yoit want.” 

The professor began to laugh. 

‘‘ I’d like to say no, just from a spirit of contradiction,” 
he said ; “ but I should only punish myself. If you don’t 
go, he will rave all night, like the fool he is, and I shall 
have to watch him ; for I notice that blessed sister always 
enjoys her soundest sleep when there is the most need of 
her keeping awake ! Per Bacco, if your religious fables 
had any foundation, what a drowsy set the elect would be 
up in their pearl-gated paradise !” 

‘‘ My dear professor, eat your supper, drink your beer, 
and convince yourself that at least your corporeal part is 
not a delusion,” counseled Miss Cameron. 

“ Tausend teufels!'"'* exclaimed the savant, glowering at 
her. ‘‘ You really are a beauty ! It is a pity you are only 
so much hydrogen, and oxygen, and ” 

‘‘ Never mind the rest of the unpleasant compounds, 
you dreadful old materialistic absurdity,” interrupted 
Violet, and disappeared within the arched portals which 
led to the sick man’s quarters. 

The professor snorted, settled his cravat, frowned at 
Antonio, and ejaculated : 

She is the most wonderful creature in the world — 
about the only one worthy the name of woman.” 

^‘She is, sir,” said Antonio, in the meekest under-key of 
his many-toned voice. He knew that if he spoke the pro- 
fessor would snub him ; if he did not speak, the professor 
would rate him for his impertinence. ‘‘She is indeed, sir.” 

“ Mind your business !” howled the savant. “ Who per- 
mitted you to have opinions ? Set you up, indeed ! As if 
you had reached the stage of development when the human 
animal acquires what they call a soul — the fools !” 

Antonio bowed low. 

“ What are you jerking about for like a monkey ?” de- 


76 


DEAD A8 PHARAOK 


manded the professor. Do you know we are all a superior 
sort of apes — not so very superior either — nothing else, the 
grandest of us?” 

‘‘ If you please, sir — whatever you like, sir,” said 
Antonio. 

“ I don’t like it at all,” shouted the professor ; ‘‘ but 
my likings don’t change facts. Oh, see here, come uj. 
stairs and find me a crust ! My stomach is as empty as a 
balloon — that is what makes me theoretical.” 

‘‘ It is not exactly the word I should have chosen to ex- 
press your damnable ill-temper,” muttered the Swiss, but 
wisely spoke so low that his commentary did not reach the 
ears of the irascible savant, who, before they gained the 
top of the stairs, had forgotten hunger and annoyance in 
the interest with which he questioned Antonio about a sick 
baby belonging to some one of Miss Cameron’s numerous 
pensioners. 

Violet entered the apartment of the rez-de-chaussee. In 
the salon next Aylmer’s chamber sat the sister. Her arms 
rested on a table, her head reposed on her arms, and she 
was slumbering sweetly ; the slow, measured breathings 
which escaped her lips at regular intervals sounding so like 
Ave — ave — Maria — a — ve,” that it seemed as if she must 
be continuing her orisons in her sleep. 

Miss Cameron reached the bedroom. The instant her 
foot crossed the threshold, lightly as she trod, carefully as 
she gathered her silken draperies in her hand, to prevent 
any rustle disturbing the sick man’s ear, the voice which 
she had heard as she traversed the salons ceased its utter- 
ance : the sufferer lay perfectly quiet. 

The same effect had so often been produced during the 
past days and nights that Violet could not call it chance. 
At first she had endeavored to do so, had smiled at the 
professor’s talk about magnetic influence, psychological 
mysteries, and the rest ; but that her presence could always 
mysteriously soothe the patient was certain. True, there 
remained the idea that he mistook her for some one else ; 
and that some one else, of all women, Giulia da Rimini ! 
This was hard. It rendered her visits always a trial ; 
mixed something revolting therewith, which would not bear 
thinking about, and brought back the stern judgment that 
she had determined to put aside until he should be restored 
to health. 


BEAD AS PEABAOH. 


77 


As she seated herself by the bed, Aylmer looked up, 
and said eagerly : 

‘‘ Thanks, thanks ! What a shame for me to trouble 
you like this !” 

He spoke so rationally that, for an instant, she thought 
he knew what he was saying, then recollected how several 
times she had allowed herself to be deceived by similar ap- 
pearances. 

He shut his eyes. His fingers, stretched out across the 
counterpane, moved slowly, restlessly, and would not be 
still. She knew what she should have to do — lay her hand 
in his. This little struggle of wills invariably took place 
between them — invariably she was obliged to yield. 

So now, after waiting so long that her conscience re- 
proached her as cruel, she laid her cool fingers upon his 
palm. His hand closed quickly over hers, a smile hovered 
about his lips — lingering there even after he had fallen 
asleep. 

She sat still for perhaps twenty minutes — was beginning 
to wonder the professor did not return — to think she might 
rise, trusting to the soundness of the sick man’s slumber 
not to disturb him — when .he opened his eyes again, saying 
softly : 

“I did not dream it — you are here !” 

Yes, I am here,” she answered, humoring his mood as 
the doctor had bidden her always to do. 

‘‘It is too bad you sliould be troubled ! You were here 
when I fell asleep — I know ! I can tell the moment you 
reach the threshold.” 

How rational his voice sounded ; weaker, slower too 
than usual. Could he be conscious what he was saying ? 

“ You did not think I could tell ? I can always recog- 
nize your step, even when I am a little out of my head. It 
does wander very often, I know ; but somehow I can’t stop 
it ! Now it feels steady — that is because you are here.” 

She could not resist the impulse to discover whether, 
delirious or not, he recognized her ; or whether, entering 
his dreams and fancies, he mistook her for that evil-eyed 
Circe, to be mistaken for whom, even by the disordered 
imagination of a sick man, appeared a degradation. 

“ Because you are here,” he repeated in a low, contented 
lone. 

“ Do you know who I am ?” she asked. 


78 


DEAD A8 PHARAOE, 


What a question, Miss Cameron !” 

She was so astonished that she tried to draw her hand 
away. 

“ Don’t !” he said, piteously ; “ don’t ! My head will 
go if you do. And I want to tell you something — 1 
have wanted to so long : it is always so hard to remember ! 
I try when you are not here — I think I shall when you come 
back ; then it goes — it goes !” 

Partially sane he certainly was ; he must be soothed. 
This was no time for nonsensical scruples or whims on her 
part. She must quiet him ; it was simply a humane neces- 
sity, as much as it would be to give him a drink if he com- 
plained of thirst. 

“ You will recollect presently,” she said. ‘‘See, I am 
here — I will sit beside you.” 

“ Xot know you ? What an odd idea !” he rambled 
on ; “ why, I did from the very first, bad as ray head was. 
Though, somehow, that once it did not seem to be you — 
but that was my head. You just came softly in and laid 
the flowers on my pillow. Ha, ha ! — the fever, you know — 
I dreamed you kissed me ! Yet it didn’t seem you — some- 
body trying to deceive me ! Then the doctor carried off 
the flowers. I wanted to tell him to let them alone, but I 
could not make him understand. Not know you ? It was 
only that once I had any doubt — only that once !” 

So he babbled on, holding her hand fast, recognizing 
her, but not able to repress the utterance of any fancy 
which crossed his mind ; not sufiiciently rational to attempt 
to do so. 

And Violet sat beside him until he again fell asleep. 

He had known her from the first : the flowers he had 
believed her gift ! It was not Giulia da Rimini who occu- 
pied his thoughts ; her censure had been undeserved. The 
woman’s coming was not his fault. Nina had vowed over 
and over that he disliked the creature ! And — and — he 
had always known her, Violet, even in the height of his 
delirium. 

Yes, the old professor was right ! The human soul — 
intellect — intelligence — call it by whatever name science 
pleased — held strange, inexplicable mysteries. 

He had known her — Violet ! She could sit there in 
peace ! She had been unjust to him, and she was sorry, 
very sorry. 


EI8 DISCOYEBT. 


7f 


CHAPTER Vm. 

HIS DISCOVERY. 

YLMER’S fever yielded, his strength began to 
return, and the doctor pronounced him conva- 
lescent. At first he shrank from any effort at 
thought ; it caused a confusion in his brain re- 
sembling the delirium, which, having as a rule 
been only partial, left him conscious his wdts were astray, 
making him sometimes feel as if an exterior intelligence 
had lodged itself in his soul, and was watching his mental 
aberrations with cynical amusement. 

Miss Cameron’s visits ceased with the recovery of his 
reason, and Aylmer did not mention her name, afraid of 
learning that his impression of her frequent presence was as 
unreal as his other delusions. Indeed, for a while, even the 
accident seemed a part of those feverish visions. Then 
that settled into reality, as did the fact of her safety. 

He liked to lie with closed eyes and recall the noiseless 
appearance of that beautiful figure when his wanderings be- 
came painful — the touch of her cool hand, the sound of her 
low sweet voice. As he grew able to reflect, he argued 
that his fancy was not surprising, since no woman had ever 
impressed him so deeply from the moment of their meeting, 
and during the entire day and evening which closed so 
tragically she had been the prominent subject in his mind. 

He had stood at a distance and watched her that after- 
noon in the Cascine, would not even ask a question con- 
cerning her, prevented by some impulse as strong as he 
felt it romantic and boyish. She had started up before him 
like a revelation of beauty from some higher sphere, such 
as the old Greeks believed occasionally granted to mortals, 
and he wanted as long as he could to keep her separate 
from ordinary humanity. Though he smiled at his own 
folly he obeyed it, and carefully avoided several acquaint- 
ances whom he noticed conversing with her, lest he should 
be obliged to listen to verbiage which would at^ once trans- 
form his goddess into common clay. 

A few hours later she had appeared again to his sight, 



80 


HIS DISCOVERY. 

more lovely than ever. For a little he had been troubled 
by something in her manner which seemed to imply a pre- 
jndice against him, but that fear vanished under the charm 
of her conversation. He had driven out to the villa with a 
friend, but he desired to escape companionship on his re- 
turn. The night was so perfect that he determined to walk 
back to Florence. He had seated himself by the roadside, 
lost in some vague dream, of which she Tras the object, 
when roused by the tramp of the frightened horses. 

His last thought before he sank down, down into the 
dark — so the catastrophe presented itself to him — had been 
of her danger ; every faculty of mind and body concen- 
trated in a wild effort to save her. So it was natural 
enough that her image should have haunted his delirious 
hours, and her fancied presence have possessed the power 
to calm him, as he recollected had often been the case. 

The professor wished his patient still to remain in igno- 
rance of his whereabouts, and when the march esa got able 
to go down stairs, cautioned her to wear a bonnet, so that 
she might be supposed to have come from her own house. 
Carlo also had to be vouchsafed admittance to the sick- 
chamber, but the savant, fearful of some indiscretion, 
glared and frowned till the poor man could not talk at all, 
and behaved so stupidly that ungrateful Aylmer rejoiced 
over his departure, whereupon the old tyrant chuckled 
hugely. 

More days passed. Nina had paid another visit ; Carlo 
had been sat upon anew, and at last, though the sweetest- 
terapered of mortals, he could not refrain from asserting 
himself a little when he and the doctor went up stairs. 

“ The poor fellow can be removed now,” he said ; “ so 
he might as well hear the truth. It is quite dreadful for us 
to make Miss Cameron’s house a hotel any longer.” 

“ I don’t care 1” retorted the savant. Why did she 
smash him under her horses’ hoofs? I’ll tell him whem 
I’m ready, not before. Ach, mein Gott ! you boy — you 
marchesino — are you to teach the old German ?” 

Though Violet joined in the laughter with which Nina 
and Carlo received the professor’s testiness, she was not 
pleased at his refusal to let her offer any sign of gratitude 
or sympathy to the patient. 

‘‘ He must think me an absolute monster,” she said. 


HIS DISCOYEBY, 


81 


“ Hasn’t spoken of you,” returned the German, in a sat- 
isfied tone. 

‘‘ No wonder ! Probably he does not consider me worth 
mentioning — a woman who does not even take the trouble 
to inquire after him when he received his injury in saving 
her ! Come, professor, I will not endure such tyranny any 
longer.” 

“ Won’t you, indeed !” growled the professor. 

“At least take him a message from her,” urged Nina. 

“ Message !” echoed the professor, in high contempt. 

“ Or a bunch of jessamines,” laughed Carlo, and Nina 
laughed too with all her heart. 

Violet turned and pulled down a blind which let too 
much light in upon a stand of flowers. A wave of color 
like a reflection of the sunbeams crossed her cheeks, but 
luckily nobody noticed it. 

“I’ll have no risks run,” pursued the savant. “I have 
studied the fellow as carefully as if he were a bit of fossil 
from which I could make out a new animal that would prove 
a link between man and his monkey ancestor, instead of 
that useless phase of development, a modern young dandy.” 

“ Take that, Carlino mio,” parenthesized Nina. 

“Just so,” said the professor. “ No, no ; leave me to 
manage matters. I don’t suppose the Fraulein really wants 
to turn us out.” 

“ Now, professor !” 

“ It was the marchese’s insinuation.” 

“ Aren’t you ashamed. Carlo ?” said Violet. 

“ I am ashamed of him,” added Nina. 

“ You dreadful old scarabeus of a professor !” criea 
Carlo. “ You bring them down on me in order that you » 
may escape.” At this juncture Eliza Bronson, seated in a 
corner to which she had retired on Schmidt’s entrance, 
heaved an ostentatious sigh. “ Pray come to my rescue, 
Miss Bronson,” continued Carlo. 

“ Oh, marchese,” returned she, with a shiver, “ please 
do not ask me. Everybody here knows my sentiments !” 

“ If you come to anything so tender, I, as that wretch’s 
injured wife, had better leave the room,” cried the incorri- 
gible Nina. 

“ Eliza, I shall be obliged to engage you a mentor,” said 
Violet. 

“ As soon as my patient is better, I shall feel highly 
4 ’*' 


82 


HIS DISCOVERY. 


honored if I can he intrusted with that pleasurable duty,’* 
observed the professor, in an insinuating voice. 

“ Now, Miss Bronson, do not be silenced by their folly,” 
pleaded Carlo. “Speak out ; give me your moral support.” 

Eliza assumed her governess manner, sitting as erect in 
her chair as if it had been a schoolroom official bench. 

“ I cannot jest upon a subject which appears to my 
mind — I do not judge for others — ” she cast a glance of 
condemnation at Nina and Violet, which grew positively 
withering as it fell upon the professor, who acknowledged 
it by a second bow, very grave and serious. “ If I speak at 
all — I can be silent if desired ” 

“ By no means !” cooed the professor, with the amiabil 
ity of a very hoarse dove. 

“ Then I must speak sincerely,” pursued Eliza. 

“ Sincerity is what I want,” said Carlo : “ sincerity and 
justice.” 

“I honor your sentiments, marchese,” replied Eliza, as 
incapable of comprehending a jest as a statue of Minerva 
would be. “I have told Miss Cameron — I said it at first — 
I have warned her again and again what would be the result 
of that ill-advised step — ill-advised at least in my opinion — 
remember I only speak as a unit — of introducing that 

stranger gentleman under the roof of two lone ladies ” 

Ach Gott!"*^ snorted the professor, unable to control 
his delight. 

“ Yes, and I repeat it now, repeat it with energy !” cried 
Eliza, glaring at the disrespectful savant. “ Neither gibes 
nor sneers shall prevent me, when called upon to testify, from 
speaking the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth !” 

“Sir Samuel Johnson !” the professor remarked to Nina, 
in an audible whisper. 

Eliza paused to overwhelm this troubler of her eloquence 
with the proofs of his own ignorance. 

“ The great man whom you mention only bore the title 
of Doctor of Arts, nor was he the author of the sentiment 
I quoted,” said she, with lofty condescension. “ But in 
your character of German professor both errors are perhaps 
excusable, Mr. Schmidt.” 

“ Miss Bronson, I thank you for setting me right, and 
promise never to interrupt you again,” replied he suavely. 

“I have been silent,” continued Eliza, “ because I per- 


HIS DISCOVERT. 


83 


ceived that my opinion was not desired, but now I am 
called on, and must declare that my worst fears have been 
more than fulfilled. Yes, Violet, you may smile — you, 
marchesa, may encourage her thoughtless levity — but I, her 
real friend, the guide of her youth, I shudder at the reports 
which are current.” 

‘‘ Miss Bronson, your verdict overwhelms me,” cried the 
professor. 

‘‘ Sir,” said she, ‘‘ I should be glad if I could think you 
spoke seriously, with the gravity becoming so renowned a 
man.” 

‘^How neatly she mingles condemnation and compli- 
ment !” cried the unabashed professor, lifting both hands 
in sign of admiration. 

“ Wherever approval is possible, be it much or little, I 
hope I always accord it,” said Eliza. ‘‘ I trust that at least 
I am a just woman ” 

“ Then you are a phenomenon indeed !” cut in he. 
‘‘ Why, even your pet St. Paul ” 

Eliza interrupted him by rising. She swept to the 
door, paused, and addressed the company generally, rolling 
up her eyes as if to include the cherubs on the ceiling in 
her explanation. 

‘‘ I must excuse myself,” she said, in a voice at once 
tremulous and dignified. I have learned to endure a 
great deal, but not sneers upon sacred subjects and charac- 
ters — not that ! — no, no !” 

“ St. Paul declared that women ” 

But Eliza was gone. The professor laughed till his 
eyes were full of tears, and the others laughed too, even 
while reproaching him for his unmerciful teasing of the 
poor spinster. 

‘‘ It does her good,” he declared, ‘‘ puts new life in her, 
and she enjoys it. The worthy Miss Bronson belongs to 
the type of women who is happiest when most miserable.” 

The truth was that, independent of his professional 
solicitude, the doctor had motives for wanting to defer 
explanations as long as possible. He disliked the idea of 
tl)e separation which must ensue, the going back to his 
bachelor abode, and the isolation he had always declared 
necessary to a student. 

Tlie society of those gay young people had come to the 
professor like a breath of fresh air, a season of repose in 


84 EI8 DISCOVERY, 

some summer garden among sunshine and flowers, and ha 
hated to relinquish it’ though he^ spluttered dreadful 
sounding German imprecations over his own folly, and 
added many opprobrious epithets not in keeping with the 
learned titles he had a right to claim. 

Occasionally he caught himself wondering whether 
there might not be a strange happiness for a man who, 
instead of consecrating liis life to science, lived the exist- 
ence of common mortals, loved, married, and possessed 
children to brighten his age — beautiful, clever, appreciative 
daughters like the marchesa and Fraulein Violet — a son 
gifted and full of glorious promise as this Laurence. 

But, in spite of the professor’s care, the disclosure 
which he desired still further to avert, came the very day 
after Eliza Bronson had gratified the party by an exposi- 
tion of her views as to the present state of affairs in Miss 
Cameron’s household. 

The savant had left Antonio to assist the patient to 
bathe and dress ; that operation concluded, the invalid 
must rest for half an hour — sleep if he could — then take 
some soup, and later be allowed to sit up awhile. Each de- 
tail in the day’s programme had been carefully expounded, 
and both Aylmer and Antonio knew that no shadow of in- 
fringement upon his commands would be permitted by the 
professor, any more than if he were an Eastern satrap. 

His toilet completed Aylmer lay down again ; Antonio 
seated himself near the bed, and before very long his 
charge appeared to have sunk into slumber. As Antonio 
was congratulatifig himself on the fact, he suddenly remem- 
bered that he had forgotten to give the porter a message, 
and as any forgetfulness of duty constituted a crime in the 
faithful creature’s code, he felt suitably guilty. 

The nurse was in the adjoining salon — he would beg 
her to repair his error. So he stole to the door with elab- 
orate caution, and succeeded in attracting the sister’s 
attention from her book of “ Hours.” 

“I must not go out,” he whispered, as she approached ; 
‘‘ the professor bade me not. Would you be so good, ma 

soeur^ as to tell Giovanni that Miss Cameron ” 

I can’t hear,” interrupted the sister, in a mournful 
voice, like a wind across a burial-ground. 

Tell the porter that my mistress — that Miss Cameron 


ms DISCOYEItT. 


85 


These words reached Aylmer’s ear. He was not asleep, 
only lying quiet, recalling those hours of delirium bright- 
ened by the fancied companionship of that beautiful 
woman ; just tired enough after his recent exertions to 
enjoy the sort of waking dream wherein her image floated 
up from the misty depths of the past days’ mental wander- 
ings, only all the while conscious of a vague regret that 
there had been no reality in them. 

And straight across his reverie Antonio flung her name ; 
be heard it distinctly, cautiously as tl\e man spoke. 

My mistress — Miss Cameron !” 

Aylmer half raised himself on his pillow, listened 
eagerly, but not another syllable could he catch. He sank 
back again, and when Antonio reached the bed, his face 
was turned towards the wall : apparently he still slept. 

There he lay thinking — thinking. He did not wish to 
ask a question yet ; only to lie in luxurious invalid ease, and 
dwell upon the new reflection which warmed his very souk 

That recolle(|tion so strongly impressed upon his mind 
was no part of his deUisions ! She had been there — again 
and again — appearing in her loveliness to quiet him when 
that fear of some inexplicable danger which she ran, ren- 
dered his fancies insupportable pain. She had sat by his bed ; 
it was no trick of imagination that he could still feel the 
touch of her hand on his — hear the sound of her voice 
which, even while he thought his conviction of having 
heard it a cheat, thrilled his heart like a strain of music. 

It was all real ! She had cared — she had come to him ! 
They had, as he remembered telling her over and over, grown 
friends. He could recall other avowals he had made — of hav- 
ing known and loved her in some existence anterior to this ; 
where, where ? No matter ! He had found her again, and 
they should never part any more — never! She had promised ! 

And he had actually uttered these declarations to her — 
not to a creature of his imagination assuming her likeness, 
but to her ! He exulted to think those interviews had been 
no fantasy 1 Then he recalled the visit when he had spoken 
to her about the flowers, and they really had lain upon his 
pillow, and her hand had placed them there ! And think- 
ing these things, at length he fell asleep. When he woke, 
Antonio had disappeared, and the professor stood at the 
foot of the bed regarding him with an affectionately fero* 
cious glance. 


86 


ms DISCOVERY. 


“Upon my word, young man, you will soon equal the 
exploits of the Seven Sleepers,” said he. “ I told you to 
rest twenty minutes or so, and you have slept like a rock 
for more than an hour, and your soup has twice been sent 
back to keep hot.” 

Aylmer laughed in a joyous fashion. The thought which 
had gone with him into slumber was uppermost in his mind 
when he woke. 

“ Odd,” quoth the professor, “ that only men and 
hyenas share the capacity for laughter. Ah, I forgot, 
the animal called the Australian jackass. But the folly is 
perhaps excusable in a fellow so weak bodily and mentally 
as you.” 

“ I feel strong as a second Hercules ! I am well — you 
have cured me, old Esculapius — do you hear ? And I want 
my soup ; if it doesn’t come instantly, I’ll eat the sister !” 

“ What an overdose of religion you would get,” said 
the professor, eyeing him narrowly. “ Yes, you are quite 
yourself again ! I forgive your sleeping longer than I 
ordered, since it has done you so much good. And here 

comes the soup, and By the hammer of Thor, did 

I bid you bring chicken, too, you silly she prayer-monger?” 
cried the professor, scowling at the sister, but, luckily for 
her peace of mind, uttering the epithets which closed his 
sentence in German. She had grown accustomed to his 
ferocity, and enjoyed his grim humor in her demure 
fashion, though his jokes often caused her ta say many 
extra aves (and she said enough at any time), because 
afraid such hearty laughter might be a sin. 

“Yes, you did, and I mean to eat it to the last scrap,” 
said Aylmer. 

He fortified himself with his repast before he took any 
further notice of the professor, who studied him attentively 
while pretending to read a newspaper. 

“ That hour’s sleep would not account for the change,” 
thought the savant. “Some mental shock — a pleasant one 
— has happened to him. A shock ! How ? — who would 
dare give my patient a shock without permission, I should 
like to know !” 

He scowled towards each corner of the room in turn at 
an imaginary offender, finally concentrating his gaze on 
the marble nymph, and so formidable was he of aspect, 
that had tlie figure been Galatea newly awakened to life, 


HIS DISGOVEBY. 


87 


she certainly would have speedily petrified under his awful 
stare. 

‘‘Professor !” said Aylraer, abruptly. 

“ It is coining !” meditated the savant. “ Whatever it 
may be, it is coming ! After all, better than for him to be 
brooding over fancies.” 

Though the learned man did not know it, this reflection 
was an excuse he offered his conscience for the curiosity he 
felt to learn the cause of the convalescent’s high spirits, 
and as curiosity is a weakness unworthy a philosopher, he 
gave it another name in order to avoid self-contempt. 

“Professor!” repeated Aylmer, with the impatience 
always considered allowable in a person just turning into 
the highroad of recovery after a dangerous illness. 

“Eh? did you speak?” asked the wise man, deceitfully 
pretending to rouse himself with difficulty from some inter- 
esting paragraph, and holding the journal partially before 
his face. 

“ Please to lay down that newspaper for a moment,” 
said Aylmer. 

“ What, what 1” growled the professor. “He begins to 
order his doctor about. The school-boy rises against his 
master, the pot questions the potter I Come, come, none 
of that, you rebel, else I’ll find a dose that will make you 
as obedient as you were two days since.” 

Aylmer laughed again. There was such a ring of re- 
turning health and strength in the merriment that it Sounded 
like music to the professor’s ears. 

“ Whose house did you tell me this was ?” demanded 
Aylmer. 

“ So !” said the savant, mentally. “ I thought that 
was it !” 

“ Can’t you answer ? whose house ?” persisted the 
patient. 

“Did I say ?” returned the professor, in a questioning 
tone, as if trying to call to mind any such information on 
his part. 

“Yes, you did,” retorted Aylmer ; “you know you did. 
You said it was yours.” 

“ Oh, very well ; if I told you, there is no necessity of 
interrupting my reading in order to ask again,” said the 
professor, coolly. “ Here is a very interesting resumi of 


88 


HIS DI8G0YEBY. 


a speech by Gladstone ; if you like I’ll read it to you, as a 
reward for being so well to-day.” 

‘‘ I don’t care a fig about Gladstone^ speech — it is yours 
I am thinking of,” answered Aylmer, gayly. “ You did say 
this house was yours !” 

‘‘You have already made that assertion ; you have made 
a great many other foolish ones during the last weeks. I 
hope you are not losing your head again — not much of a 
head, to be sure, but, as it is the best you’ve got, it would 
be wiser to stick to it,” said the professor. 

“ Come now, leave prevarication to your pet Bismarck 
and his fellow-diplomatists. You said this was your 
house.” 

“ What a persistent devil ! Very well, for the sake of 
peace, admit that I did ; what then ?” 

“ Why, it is not.” 

“ Then we have come to the end of the matter, and I 
can read my newspaper,” replied the professor. 

Aylmer snatched the journal with boyish playfulness. 

“You can’t escape that way,” said he. “You said it 
was your house, and it isn’t, and so ” 

“I told a lie, that’s all,” interrupted the professor, com- 
placently. 

“ Of course you did : what for ?” questioned Aylmer. 

“ To keep you from fretting and worrying and making 
an idiot of yourself, you ungrateful development of a pro- 
toplasm,” cried the professor, laughing too. 

“Then it is Miss Cameron’s house ! She did come to 
see me — I did not dream it !” exclaimed Aylmer, excitedly. 

“ And if you are going to lash yourself into fresh fever 
I’ll go away !” thundered the professor. 

“ No, no — don’t, don’t I Tell me all about it, like a 
good-natured old fellow as you are.” 

“ I’ll not be called good-natured ; that is one insult too 
many,” cried the professor. 

“ What a dolt I was to let myself be convinced that her 
coming was a dream,” Aylmer continued half aloud, with a 
sudden color in his face, a sudden brightness in his eyes, 
which caused the doctor to make a hasty clutch at his wrist 
to ascertain what story the pulse was telling. 

“ If you excite yourself I’ll shave your head at once I 
I’ve had worry enough over you,” said he. 

“ I’ve no more fever than you,” retorted Aylmer. I'lien 


m8 DISCOVERT, 


89 


he laid his hand' on the professor’s and added coaxingly 
Ah, now tell me all about it. See, I am perfectly quiet, 
and I want to hear.” 

“ Well, well,” grumbled the professor, charmed with the 
spirit in which his patient received this discovery. ‘‘ The all 
is easily told. After the horses tumbled you over you were 
put into the carriage, and she — Miss Cameron — brought you 
into Florence and drove to my house. We didn’t know 
where you lived ; my place was upset. We couldn’t ex- 
actly consign you to a hospital, so she brought you here. 
That’s the whole.” 

I did not dream it,” Aylmer was thinking. ‘^She has 
been here often, talked to me, held my hand, sat in that 
very chair.” He glanced towards the fauteuil in which the 
professor was established, and exclaimed imperiously : 
‘‘ Get up out of that chair ; take another !” 

“ There, he is mad again ; I was sure of it,” snarled the 
professor. 

‘‘ I will be, unless you do exactly as I say. It’s my turn 
to give orders now,” said Aylmer, laughing, but tugging at 
the savant’s hand with such force as he could muster. 

“ Come, I’ll take this one,” said the professor, rising, 
‘‘Now tell me why, you rebel.” 

“ Oh, I couldn’t see you so well ” 

“ That’s not a prevarication — that’s a falsehood !” broke 
in the savant. 

“ You perceive what your example has done,” said Ayl- 
mer. “ It was just a sudden whim that made me wish you 
to get up. I may have whims — a sick man’s privilege.” 

“Well, well,” returned the professor, “you may do 
pretty much what you like. I am content with you for 
taking the news as you do. You can understand why I let 
you think yourself in my house. You would have worried 
over being a trouble, perhaps have insisted on being re- 
moved, and that — well, that would have made a pretty ket- 
tle of fish,” concluded the professor, inelegantly but for- 
cibly. 

Aylmer was dreaming again. That voice rang in his 
ear — the touch of those slender fingers thrilled his pulses 
anew. He roused himself, becoming suddenly aware of 
the professor’s last speech in the odd way in which, when 
occupied with some engrossing thought, one does recall 


90 


HER COMING, 


words that one was not aware of hearing when they were 
uttered. 

“ All the same, it is shocking to think what a bore I 
have been,” he said, but there was slight compunction in his 
tone. can be removed, and I must be and now bis 
accent sounded regretful enough. 

‘‘ Nothing can be arranged to-day. You have done 
enough, and too much,” replied the professor. “Lie down 
like a sensible fellow, else you will not be fit to stir for 
another week. So, so ! be a good boy, and listen to Glad- 
stone’s eloquence.” 

Aylmer consented with praiseworthy obedience, glad to 
have another half-hour with his pleasant fancies. The 
reading would not disturb their course, and the professor 
was as well aware of this fact as the patient. 

“Yes, read to me,” Aylmer added absently, as he lay 
back among his pillows. 

The doctor took up the newspaper again, and readjusted 
his glasses, then dropped both, struck by a new thought. 

“ Sapperment !” he exclaimed ; “ how did you find out ? 
Who told you — who dared, after my express orders ?” 

“ Never mind how — I know it. Nobody told me. I 
evolved it out of my inner consciousness, as if I had been 
a German professor,” said Aylmer. 

They both laughed ; then the savant began the speech, 
and Aylmer lay quiet, and for a whole hour there was no 
sound in the room save the reader’s slow, deep, tones. 

“ But he has not heard a syllable,” thought that gentle- 
man, glancing up as he turned a page. “ No matter, it 
keeps him quiet ; that is the important thing just now.” 


CHAPTER IX. 

HEE COMING. 

HE afternoon passed — evening was drawing on. 
Before the professor set out for a walk he 
looked into Aylmer’s room. He found his 
patient sitting up, but not in the easy-chair 
from which he had obliged the doctor to rise — 
he had refused that — bidding the sister place it opposite 



HER COMING. 


91 


him. She obeyed his direction, too much accustomed to 
sick people’s vagaries to give his whim a thought, any more 
than she had done his sudden fussiness over the arrange- 
’nient of his hair and the difficulty he made about his attire, 
insisting that he would not wear a dressing-gown, and giv- 
ing her no peace until she found among his wardrobe a 
certain loose breakfast-coat, which proved a very pictur- 
esque and becoming garment, with its wide sleeves and the 
tracery of dark blue that relieved its gray tint. 

I’m all right,” Aylmer replied to the professor’s ques- 
tions. “ But it begins to be confoundedly lonesome staying 
cooped up here by myself.” 

“ So !” thought the savant ; then added aloud : I mean 
to bring you a visitor — but mind, if I find you excited and 
feverish when I get back, you’ll not see a human face again, 
except that salad-in-a-cellar looking sister, for another 
week.” 

I’ll be as good as gold if only I’m not left alone,” re- 
turned Aylmer ; but let me go into the salon. I want a 
change.” 

Tlie professor assisted him into the next room, coaxed 
him to half lie down on a sofa and promise not to stir ; 
then he went away without having vouchsafed any infor- 
mation in regard to the visitor, nor had Aylmer so much as 
asked. 

It was sunset ; through a great arched window swept a 
soft glow from the western sky. He could look over a 
stretch of green lawn, across a group of oleanders, down a 
broad alley, which led away into the recesses of the garden 
— one of the largest and finest in Florence. 

In the distance, walking slowing up the path, he saw a 
woman’s figure — a figure which he recognized. (Remem- 
ber, he was just escaping from the dominion of that Giant 
Despair called illness, so wild thoughts and irrational 
fancies were excusable !) It was not the Miss Cameron 
whom the world knew — the lady he had only seen on four 
occasons while able to recognize her as a real presence. It 
was the beautiful vision that had so many times appeared 
at his eager summons when in his hours of delirium she 
alone could keep his soul from drifting down the blacker 
gulf which loomed beyond. The vision he had addressed 
so ^reely — the incarnation of the spirit he had known in 
some lost world where their union possessed such complete* 


93 


HER COJUING, 


ness that their two lives formed a perfect whole — one, yet 
dual, and this duality had made the bliss of living, and 

But he recognized the absurdity of his reflections, and 
almost thought himself insane again. He sat upright and 
looked eagerly out at the approaching form, trying to sub- 
due those vagaries of imagination by the force of his will. 

Involuntarily he uttered her name, then began to won- 
der how he knew she was^called Violet ; but he had no leis- 
ure to recollect, for unawares he spoke aloud and roused 
the sister seated in the adjoining salon. She supposed he 
had summoned her, and, dropping her half -counted rosary, 
appeared in the doorway. 

“ Does the signore want something ?” she said. 

And he, impatient, afraid to turn his eyes from the case- 
ment lest the figure beneath the oleanders should fade, and 
so prove to him that he w'as the victim of fresh delusions, 
• only waved her back with a gesture at once imperious and 
supplicating. The good sister, trained by long experience 
in sick-rooms till her commonplace mind had reached a 
knowledge of what it was best to do under any and every 
circumstance, quietly returned to her chair, and fell to 
counting her beads again. 

And still, through the window-pane and the oleander 
boughs, Aylmer watched with his soul in his eyes, and to 
convince himself of his own sanity, tried to separate Miss 
Cameron the actual from the visionary creature of his 
feverish dreams — tried, but could not. 

He positively studied each detail of her dress in his 
effort to be rational. She must have just come in from a 
drive ; her long green silken petticoat swept over the 
ground in heavy folds ; above it was looped a tunic of 
some thick dead white material, bordered by the brilliant 
plumage of tropical birds ; beneath her cavalier’s hat with 
its drooping feather, he could see the bands and falling 
masses of her auburn hair which the sunlight turned to 
gol<1. 

She stopped to examine a flowering shrub — lifted her 
arm to pull a branch within reach. The rays fell full upon 
her face — sent a wave of light into the great eyes — flitted 
over the melancholy mouth as if seeking to win a smile. 

It was she — the woman the world knew — Yioiet Cam- 
eron ; all the same, it was the vision of the past days — his 
friend — his queen — his soul of soul ! 


HER COMING. 


93 


Then he heard a voice call abruptly, and came back to 
reality with a shock. A pane of the window stood open ; 
he could not see the sage, but there was no mistaking those 
tones. 

“ Fraulein,” they said, “ I have been hunting for you ! 
My adored Miss Bronson told me that you had come in 
from your drive. Why do you hide in the garden like a 
Dryad when I want you ?” 

She did not answer ; waved her hand to the unseen 
speaker and disappeared. 

With a sigh and a sensation of terrible Impatience 
which rendered each second interminable, Aylmer leaned 
his head back against the sofa cushions and waited. 

He would not look out — the garden appeared suddenly 
to have grown dark ; its depths, thick with shadows, re 
minded him of the blackness into which sometimes in his 
fever he had been forced to gaze. He waited, that burn- 
ing impatience growing stronger. During his illness^ the 
vision had always appeared at such moments : would Miss 
Cameron come now and thereby prove her identity with 
it ? Or was this present instant only part and parcel of 
the former fancies — nothing real — even the discovery of the 
morning delusion also ? 

So far he reached in his questionings, then his strained 
senses caught the opening and closing of a door ; caught 
the rustle of female garments nearer — coming nearer. 

Where he sat he could not see into the rooms beyond, 
but the sweep of those silken robes, soft as the plash of 
water in a crystal basin, thrilled him till the ecstasy became 
pain, because it roused anew the fear that everything — 
face — glorious eyes — slow gliding step — musical .rustle — 
was a fantasy. Then he heard her voice — ah, it was all 
real — her voice ! 

She was speaking to the sister, making some kind in- 
quiry, then he heard nothing more. His pulses surged up 
in such united, tumultuous beat that he grew deaf and 
blind. 

After this dizzy pause came her tones again, close at 
hand, addressing him, bringing him back to reality, but a 
reality which was a higher heaven even than his dreams. 

“ The professor bade me come and sit with you. No- 
body ever ventures to disobey the professor, so you cannot 
send me away.” 


94 


HER COMING. 


The whirling mists cleared from before his eyes, and he 
saw her standing on the threshold. Through the arched 
window floated a broad ray of red-golden light, and illumi- 
nated face and figure as she stood. In his excitement he 
forgot the courteous phrases he was trying to frame — 
could only stretch out his hands in eager welcome, crying, 
uncertain whether he addressed the creation of his fancies 
or the living woman : 

“ I thought you would never come again ! I thought 
you would never come !” 

And Violet, mistress of herself as she supposed, was 
forced, in order to convince something in her soul of this 
supremacy, to inform reason that the strange thrill which 
shook her rose out of a fear that the professor had erred in 
thinking his patient wholly recovered from fever. 

“So I must humor him,” she thought, moved towards 
the sofa, let him take her hand, and said aloud : 

“ I am glad to see you so w^ell. But you are not to tire 
yourself. The professor will never forgive me if he finds 
that a visitor has excited you.” 

“ It is such a rest — such a rest !” Aylmer murmured, for 
a few instants unable to lift his dizzy head from the cush- 
ions, unable to check or regulate his utterance ; holding her 
hand fast ; his eyes, unnaturally large from illness, fixed 
yearningly upon her face. “It is not a dream — say that it 
is not a dream !” 

With an effort Violet roused herself to the requirements 
of her role as visitor to an invalid, accredited by the physi- 
cian with sufficient sense to render her coming a benefit, not 
a harm. 

She drew her hands away gently, though obliged to 
employ a certain force to release them, and sat down in an 
arm-chair by his sofa, saying, with a playfulness which was 
a greater effort still : 

“ The professor does not permit his patients to have 
fancies when they are able to sit up and receive guests. So 
take care, for one never knows when he may be hovering 
about. Any way, I see his great meerschaum pipe with the 
ogre’s head lying on the table ; I am certain it is listening, 
and will repeat every word. How wicked it looks, to be 
sure ! I always tell him it is his familiar.” 

Aylmer recovered self-control to recollect that he risked 
making this interview the last if he did not manage to get 


HER COMim, 


95 


back reason enough to separate dreams and reality, and 
behave like an ordinary convalescent receiving an ordinary 
visit. 

“I am afraid he has smoked the rooms out of all possi- 
bility of ever being habitable — Miss Cameron.” 

The little pause before pronouncing her name was 
caused by the effort required to repress a word which 
would have utterly ruined the success of his speech in 
proving his sanity — he had come so near saying Violet. 

“Oh, no,” she replied ; “I shall like the trace of his pres- 
ence. I have a great weakness for the good, gruff old 
doctor.” 

The fright which his hardly repressed blunder occa- 
sioned Aylmer helped him on to a tolerable pretense of 
composure. 

“ Good to me indeed !” he said. “ How am I ever to 
thank him or you, Miss Cameron ?” 

“ I should think, where I am concerned, forgiveness 
would be the difficulty, since but for me you would not 
have met with your accident, would not ” 

She left her sentence unfinished. 

“ I am so thankful I was there,” he half whispered. 

Again his hand stretched out to take hers ; then he re- 
membered that such privilege was at an end ; and she, 
noting his gesture, had to recollect that obedience to his 
caprices was no longer a necessity, so natural would it have 
seemed to let her fingers drop into his. 

“ We must not talk of all that yet,” she said, as he hur- 
riedly drew back his arm. “ Some time thanks will be 
mine to offer, if I can find words.” 

“ No, no ” 

“ The ogre is listening ; his grim eyes plainly say, ‘No 
exciting subjects,’ ” she interrupted, laughingly. “ I am 
very, very glad to find you doing so well, Mr. Aylmer. 
You have had a weary bout, but thank heaven it is over.” 

“ Yes, I am quite sound again. I shall be able to re- 
move and let your house end its term of serving as hospi- 
tal,” he answered, conscious that his words were fairly un- 
gracious, yet unable to check them. He felt hurt by her 
determination to keep the conversation on an ordinary foot- 
ing, even though he had just been mentally admitting the 
necessity. 

“ The professor will settle all that,” she answered. “He 


/ 


96 HER COMING, 

will permit no interference, especially from his patient. 
As for me, I am sure I do not need to tell you how glad I 
have been that I could be of the slightest use in any 
fashion.” 

In more ways than one you have shown that kind- 
ness,” he said, a fresh eagerness quickening his voice. “ I 
can remember — everything begins to come back quite clearly 
— how good you were to sit with me when I bad driven the 
professor to the end of his resources and his patience.” 

He remembered ? Surely only the fact which he had 
just stated — nothing beyond the certainty that she used to 
sit with him and possessed an ability to soothe his pain. 
He did not recollect his delirious utterances, when to quiet 
him she talked as great nonsense as he — humored his fancy 
about the lost world where they had known each other — 
allowed him to kiss her bsjnds ! Oh, assuredly he did not 
remember those things. To think he did would render their 
future intercourse difficult, for they had yet to become ac- 
quainted. This was the strangest part of the matter, as 
strange to Violet as to him. 

You had a visit from the marchese this morning,” 
she said abruptly, just for the sake of breaking the 
silence. 

Oh yes, he is very good-natured,” Aylmer answered 
wearily. But men, though they are well enough when 
one is strong, are so out of place in a sick-room. Carlo 
fell over a footstool and upset a glass of water on the bed. 
He meant it all for the best ; but it is trying, you know.” 

‘‘ Very, no doubt,” Violet said, laughing. However, 
those trifles will soon cease to annoy you ; you are recover- 
ing so fast that before long it will be your turn to upset 
furniture and spill goblets of water over sick people.” 

Oh, no doubt, though the professor says I must take 
great care,” said Aylmer, with a suddeti wicked repulsion 
against this rapid recovery, which would involve being 
cast out of Paradise. 

No doubt it was delightful to have health, but really 
illness had its compensations. So great did they appear 
at this instant that Aylmer would have resigned himself if 
the professor had entered and pronounced that his patient 
must not stir from his sofa or change his companion for at 
least a month. 

Somehow Violet perfectly comprehended what gave 


HER COMING. 


97 


rise to the petulant, even undignified answer, since one is 
always ready to smile at*a man’s willingness to be careful 
of his heal til. She was gratified by his dislike to go away, 
though she hastened to tell herself that this was natural 
and right on her part. He had saved her life ; she ought 
to feel an interest in him, to like him, to wish to be 
pleasant in his eyes. 

Then, after a pause, so filled with thought to both that 
neither knew how long it lasted, Aylmer added : 

But all the same. Miss Cameron, I don’t propose to 
keep indefinite possession of a whole floor of your house. 
It is quite shocking, and I ought — well, I ought to be 
much more ashamed than I am.” 

‘‘ Ah, I forgive you the rest, for the sake of the end of 
your sentence,” returned Violet. ‘‘Nothing — considering 
the manner in which you received your injury — could pain 
me more than for you to suppose that your presence under 
my roof was any gene.^’* 

“ Thanks. Yes, somehow I do know,” cried he. “ You 
see — please don’t be vexed — I forget that you can’t feel 
as if you were acquainted with me. I seem to know you 
so well ! I mean, I got so used to seeing — to expecting 
you when I was ill.” 

Here he broke down ; Violet sat with bowed head, and 
did not offer to help him. 

“I say it all very badly. I am afraid it sounds dread- 
fully impertinent,” he continued, despairingly trying to 
make amends if he had said anything wrong, yet conscious 
that if she chose to be offended, each word led him deeper 
into the slough ; “ but I have to try and say it the best I 
can in my clumsy way ! You don’t mind, do you ? And 
you have been so good to me that I can’t seem just like a 
stranger — they say people never do to whom one has been 
kind ! I am sure I only confuse things worse each word I 
speak ; but you do understand ?” 

And Violet, ashamed of the sudden fit of shyness which 
had kept her silent under the eager glances that pointed 
his speech, looked up and smiled, holding out her hand as 
she. did so- 

“ I understand that we are very good friends and mean 
to remain so,’^ she answered. 

“ Ah !” was his only response, but the tone held such 
a ring of contentment that it spoke volumes. 

5 ‘ ^ ‘ 


98 


HER COMING. 


lie cVkI not seera inclined to let her hand go now he had 
possession of it, but she drew it away presently, and began 
to talk of other things than those which had immediate 
connection with themselves. 

The room liad filled with the shadows of twilight — 
neitlier knew. Violet was brought back to a sense of the 
length of her visit by noticing that the sister had lighted a 
lamp. 

“I shall be late for dinner,” she said, rising ; “as I 
liave guests, it will not do to keep them waiting. I hope 
before long you will be able to join us, Mr. Aylmer.” 

“Yes, I hope so!” Then, very dolefully, “Must you 
go ? Oh, I beg your pardon ! It was so kind of you to 
come.” 

“ How is he, that newly-come-back-to-life atom ?” called 
a voice from the door, and the professor entered. 

“ Much better, I am sure,” Violet said. 

“ Yes ; Miss Cameron’s visit has done me more good 
than all your drugs,” said Aylmer. 

“As if I gave drugs ! Well, never mind. Yes — better : 
pulse good. Come, come, it is all right ! Miss Cameron 
must promise to visit you to-morrow.” 

. “Mr. Aylmer wishes to run away at once,” she said. 

“ I forbid it !” cried the doctor. “ He must not make 
any change for some days yet. I’ll not have him upset the 
good effects of iny care by any nonsensical scruples.” 

Aylmer would have liked to hug the old man. 

“You are quite right,” said Violet ; “ it would be very 
ungrateful.” 

“ I really am in earnest,” the professor continued ; “ a 
change from one house to another is a serious matter. Do 
what we might, it would be like a new' climate.” 

“ You hear ?” said Violet, once more offering her hand 
to the invalid. “ Try not to regret your imprisonment too 
much ; we will lighten it all we can.” 

She went out of the room, leaving the faint perfume 
which hung about her dress to soothe him by its fragrance, 
and he, without remonstrance, yielded to the professor’s 
order that he was to go to bed ; and, once there, slept 
soundly and well. 


MLCABEME. 


99 


CHAPTER X. 
mi-cae£:me. 

OWARDS the close of Aylmer’s imprisonment he 
was able, with the help of Antonio’s arm, to get 
up stairs several times. 

I On his first visit, to the intense amusement 
of the observers, he achieved a wonderful ex- 
ploit — thoroughly charmed Miss Bronson. From that hour 
she forgot all fear for' her own and Violet’s reputation. 
Whenever Aylmer remembered to enter some feeble pro- 
test against remaining any longer a nuisance, Eliza proved 
the most urgent in her warnings that he must have patience 
and commit no imprudence, and waxed pathetic over his 
using a word which might imply that he thought his friends 
capable of wearying in the pursuance of what was at once 
a duty and pleasure — the careful guarding of his conva- 
lescence. 

She fretted him a good deal by rushing about in his 
wake with footstools, unexpectedly burying him under rugs 
or shawls to avert insidious draughts, uttering doleful little 
squeaks when he rose suddenly, convinced that he was 
about to fall, and selecting her stateliest phrases to reprove 
the others for their lack of attention. Once the professor 
declared that in his opinion his late patient was a lazy 
young dog who pretended weakness in order to excite sym- 
pathy. Eliza, as usual, accepted the jest as a serious accu- 
sation, turned sharply on the old German and informed him 
that it was sufficient for a man to be an atheist — to add 
hard-hearted ness to this sin rendered him a monster. 

But Aylmer bore her well-intended persecutions with 
outward patience, and would not allow Nina and the savant 
to tease her nearly so much as they wished ; her very pecu- 
liarities had a sacredness in his eyes, because she was inti- 
mately connected with Miss Cameron. 

So the little party, containing such apparently incon- 
gruous elements, passed many pleasant hours. It grew the 
habit for them all to spend a great deal of time in Aylmer’s 
salon. Carlo sacrificed the attractions of and cards 



100 


MI-GABEME, 


in an astounding fashion, and Eliza accused the marchesa 
and Violet of downright cruelty if they ventured to inter- 
fere with the convalescent’s claims by going out to drive 
or accepting any invitation for the evening. 

But these enjoyable days came to an end. Aylmer grew 
so well that he needed more exercise than occasional walks 
in the garden afforded, and of course when he could leave 
the palace inclosures, there was no excuse for his returning 
in the character of resident. 

The professor decided that a breath of sea-air would 
prove beneficial, so one morning he carried Laurence off to 
Spezia. Carlo and Nina went back to the villa, and the 
two “ lone ladies ” were free to resume the propriety so 
precious to Eliza. To Violet’s great diversion, before the 
day was over that return caused the spinster a slight sensa- 
tion of boredom, and she positively snubbed the most potent 
of all the American colonists who chanced to pay her a 
visit, and, learning that Mr. Aylmer had been able to quit 
the house, ventured upon some congratulator}/ remark. 

“You were quite savage with that stately dame,” Violet 
said, when the guest had departed. 

“ My dear,” replied Eliza, “ I trust I shall never fail in 
my duty towards you, nor can I submit personally to glar- 
ingly gross injustice. To hint that it must be a relief to 
have Mr. Aylmer gone was to imply that we were too selfish 
to entertain sympathy for illness and suffering.” 

Violet good-naturedly refrained from reminding her 
what her own opinions had been until recently, as the accu- 
sation of inconsistency would have cruelly hurt the over- 
sensitive Eliza, who believed herself entirely free from that 
weakness so common to humanity. 

The next morning letters came from Mrs. Danvers and 
her step-daughter. 

“ The poor lady has been ill,” Violet explained. “ Mary 
has nursed her. Mr. Danvers’s death seems to have brought 
them closer together — that is a comfort.” 

“And when does the daughter sail?” 

“ There is no time set ; she cannot leave her step-mother 
.yet. Who knows ? perhaps they would rather keep to- 
gether. I shall write to-day and make that possible, if 
they prefer it.” 

Violet was conscious of wishing that they might ; she 
had an odd shrinking from George Danvers’s daughter. 


MI- GAME ME. 


101 


Then she reproached herself therefor, and wrote kindly and 
heartily. 

Ten days went by — days during which a strange rest- 
lessness asserted its supremacy over Violet’s will, changing 
its form at pleasure with Protean facility ; now assuming 
the guise of despondency, anon of elation, and vexing her 
always by its lack of foundation in reason or common- 
sense. 

At length she received a note from Nina, begging her 
to spend a few days at the villa. 

“ I have taken cold, and am feverish and miserable,” 
the little lady wrote. Those dreadful workmen have not 
yet left the house in town, so I am forced to remain here. 
Carlo is good as gold — though I do not care to put him 
forth as transferable currency — but I am sure he is terribly 
bored. So do come, like an angel — or like yourself, which 
will be better. I am afraid to ask dear Miss Bronson to 
accompany you, because, in order to keep Carlo at home, I 
encourage waifs from the gaming set every evening, and 
the house resembles a small Monaco ; but if she can sup- 
port the wickedness, I shall be charmed to see her.” 

Of course Violet would go. Nina’s society was always 
a pleasure, and a change of any sort acceptable just now. 
She gave Miss Bronson the invitation, but that wise virgin 
shook her head in disapproval. 

I have my soul to think of,” she said ; and I must 
think of yours, since you are so heedless ! No, Violet, I 
cannot countenance gambling. I do not wish to be severe 
on the marchesa ; I pity her for the otrait to which she is 
driven, but I blame her too. Ye shall not put a cushion 
under sin — nay, not even to bolster up a weak husband !” 
added Eliza, in a terrible voice. 

It was evident she fancied herself uttering a quotation 
from some Calvinistic divine whose authority stood next 
that of the Bible, and Violet felt the mistake very natural, 
since the phrase sounded so like the eloquent denunciations 
of those stern judges. 

She reached the villa towards dusk. As the carriage 
drove up Nina came flying out into the portico, followe(J 
by a pack of dogs, big ajid little, which barked so furiously 
that for a few seconds not a word of their mistress’s salu 
tation was audible. 

“I can only hear the greetings of your aborainally 


102 


MI-CABEME. 


spoiled pets, but I suppose, from the expression of your 
face, I may conclude you are glad to see me,” Violet said, 
when the noise died away a little. 

“ Indeed I am ! You were so late I began to fear you 
would not come till to-morrow. Don’t abuse the dogs ; 
they are only showing their delight at your arrival. Trot 
is not here ; she is the happy mother of five such pretty 
puppies. I’ll give you a choice among them. You must 
go and visit her, else her feelings will be hurt.” 

‘‘ I congratulate Trot on her increase of family, and I 
cannot say I miss her voice,” said Violet. “ And how are 
37 ou ? Really not well, or was that only a pretext to 
frighten me into obeying your whim ?” 

A happy mingling of truth and falsehood, m}^ dear, as 
a woman’s assertions ought to be,” replied the marchesa. 
‘M have had neuralgia, and I meant to be ill if you refused. 
But come in ! We have some people to dine — Carlo 
invited them,” she continued, as she led her friend into the 
stately old entrance-hall ; “ you’ll not mind, however, as 
they are all men.” 

How often must I tell you not to disgrace yourself by 
repeating such cant phrases !” cried Violet. “ I like femi- 
nine society, and so do you ; the fashion women have of 
declaring it a bore is disgusting ! I hate their novels for 
that very reason. They seem to think they show the supe- 
riority of their heroines by making them detest every 
other woman — moan over the English after-dinner hour — 
say and do everything to afford men a right to despise the 
sex from its own confessions.” 

I stand convicted — jow are right. I’ll never hint 
such a thing again, even if I think it ; at least, not to 
you,” returned Nina. Ah, here is a listener who I am 
certain approves every word you have uttered with such 
overwhelming energy.” 

The hall widened in the center to a vast room where 
couches and chairs were placed, statues lived in the niches, 
and pictures decorated the walls — a favorite haunt of the 
household. They had reached the arch as Nina spoke. 
Violet look up ; the broad space was lighted by several 
concealed lamps ; in the soft mysterious radiance she saw 
Laurence Aylmer standing at the foot of the marble stair 
case which he had just descended. He came quickly for- 
ward, face and eyes aglow with pleasure. 


MLCAEEME. 


103 


* I am so very glad to see you !” he exclaimed. I 
went to your house as soon as I reached town, but you 
were out — Miss Bronson out too ! I was quite in despair, 
since I could not call twice in the same day. Luckily I 
met Magnoletti, and he invited me to come home with 
him, promising me the pleasure of finding you here.” 

Makes no account whatever of his hostess,” cried 
Nina. ‘‘ Oh, wretched young man ! I w^ould never for- 
give you, only you have come back looking so well 
that one must pardon you anything — is it not so, Violet?” 

“ He certainly seems quite recovered,” Violet an- 
swered, giving him her hand and a cordial smile. 

He had appeared so unexpectedly that she felt startled 
— of course, only on that account — she had leisure to 
assure herself of this even while she went on to express 
her gratification at the evident benefit he had derived 
from the sea-air. 

“Did you hear her diatribe?” Nina presently de- 
manded. 

“Yes, and agreed thoroughly v. ith it,” he said. “I 
never could comprehend that lack of esprit de corps 
which women 45how. If they hold each other cheap, they 
cannot blame men for holding them all so.” 

“ That is unbearable ! I am obliged to endure Miss 
Cameron’s abuse, but I wdll not yours. Where are Carlo 
and those familiars of his?” 

“ They went into the billiard room.” 

“Could not exactly venture to sit down to baccarat 
before dinner, so must console themselves with a milder 
sort of gaming ; and wdthout even waiting to pay me their 
respects ! Upon my word, I believe Gherardi and Pisano 
take this house for an hotel, and the rest are as bad.” 

“ You were not here to receive them : the marchese 
made your excuses — said you w^ere probably dressing, and 
proposed the billiard-room by way of consolation for your 
absence,” Aylmer replied. 

“ Of course you will defend them ! I notice men 
always stand by each other in an odious fashion.” 

“ In order to set a lofty example, and cure women of 
that great error Miss Cameron so justly condemned.” 

“ Nonsense ! You do it because you are all so horribly 
wicked you are obliged to hang together like brigands,” 
retorted she. “ There is no hurry about going up stairs, 


104 


MI- C ABE ME. 


Violet ; it is not much after seven. I don’t mean to dine 
until half-past eight ; I shall keep those monsters from the 
card-table as long as possible.” 

‘‘ Now I wonder — 1 do wonder what her real reason may 
be !” said Aylmer. “ Can you imagine, Miss Cameron ?” 

I shall watch to find out ; she is certain to betray her- 
self before the evening is over,” Violet answered. 

And she talks about the necessity of women’s keep- 
ing faith among themselves !” cried Nina. ‘‘ My dear, as 
a reward for having shown that you are no better than your 
sisters. I’ll tell you ! My delightful gallant countryman. 
Prince Sabakine, is coming. He was obliged to go as far as 
Milan with the Grand Duchess — could not reach Florence 
before now — must take a special train in order to do that 
— there is devotion for you ! Well, thenj time to dress — 
forty minutes to drive out here, even with his horses ; so 
you see, I had to say half-past eight ! Now, admire my 
frankness.” 

Since you only confess your iniquity because you knew 
we should discover it,” said Violet. 

“I shall go off to the billiard-room,” vowed Nina. 
You are both too malicious for endurance, so I may as 
well recollect that I ought to show a little courtesy to 
Carlo’s evil spirits.” 

She ran gayly away. Violet sat down upon a couch 
just inside the arch, annoyed with herself for a ridiculous 
impulse to follow her friend. Something in Aylmer’s eyes 
brought a remembrance of those visits the professor had 
forced her to pay his patient. To recall the broken reve- 
lations of his delirium always fluttered her, and just now 
the sensation vexed her. It was too absurd to remember 
what a man had said in fever — as if he knew whom he 
addressed or what he uttered ! 

“ And my dear old Diogenes, is he quite well ?” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, yes ; kind as ever, and as resolute to be considered 
a Black Forest wolf,” Aylmer replied. “ I can give you 
no idea of his goodness since we have been away. But 
indeed the sympathy I have received in quarters where I 
had no right to expect it, leaves me bankrupt in gratitude.” 

“ We agreed not to talk about that,” Violet said, 
since I have certain debts which I cannot pay.” 

“ You know I consider it the greatest favor fate 


MI- CAREME, 


105 


ever showed me that I was permitted to be of use to you,” 
he exclaimed. 

His voice and eyes lent this speech a meaning far beyond 
compliment, but the phrases themselves sounded like the 
exaggerated flattery any man might have felt it his duty 
to offer, so they afforded her an opportunity to retreat 
from the subject with a jest, though it hurt her to jest 
upon that theme. 

Aylmer at once followed her lead in the direction she 
gave the conversation, perhaps a little afraid to dwell upon 
the serious side of the adventure which had carried their 
intercourse so far out of the ordinary track — afraid lest he 
might utter words he had no right to speak. Such liberty 
would be worse than ungenerous, since the peculiar footing 
on which they had been placed by his accident and its con- 
sequences would render it difficult for her to check his pre- 
sumption as easily and decidedly as she might have done in 
the case of another who committed the blunder, after so 
brief an acquaintance, of betraying a secret which his heart 
or fancy had garnered. So they talked of any trifle which 
either could snatch at, gayly, carelessly, as befitted the mo- 
ment, yet there was a subtle difference which rendered the 
conversation unlike an ordinary tete-d-t^te — a difference per- 
ceptible to the woman as to the man, though she would not 
allow her soul to admit the fact, while he gloried therein. 

Miss Cameron began admiring a stand of plants near 
the sofa ; he selected some graceful drooping blossoms, and 
wound a few green sprays about them. 

There is nothing so pretty in the hair as these little 
fern leaves,” he said, as he handed her the bouquet, and his 
eyes asked her to wear his gift. 

Unfortunately, neither the blue-bells or the ferns suit 
the color of my dress. One can’t venture to be inartistic 
in these days,” she answered ; and then recollected that she 
had replied to his glance rather than his words. 

You ought never to wear anything but white,” he ex- 
claimed, quickly. I always think of you as you looked 
the night I met you here. You were in white, too, the 
first evening you came into my prison ” 

lie paused, conscious that a word more might take him 
back to unsafe ground, then added, with a laugh too trem- 
ulous to perform its duty well : I was so much indulged 
by you all during my illness that I forget I have lost the 


106 


MI-CAREME. 


privilege of being autocratic in my opinions. I still occa- 
sionally find myself scolding the professor, and before I had 
been here an hour the marchesa had to remind me that I 
was no longer absolute.” 

Nina appeared again at the instant, and spared Violet 
the necessity of any reply. 

I am going up stairs,” she said ; I could not miss 
being ready for my model Russian. Come and see how 
pretty I have made your rooms, Violetta mia ! I expect 
you to be so charmed that you won’t have the heart to de- 
sert me, or them, for a fortnight. By that time I trust the 
workmen will leave Casa Magnoletti free, unless they have 
some special reason for forcing me to spend my life in the 
country.” 

When the marchesa had left Violet’s dressing-room, 
Clarice said to her mistress : 

“ I have laid out that new green costume for mademoi- 
selle.” 

“ I shall wear white,” returned Miss Cameron. 

Mademoiselle has lived in white of late — positively 
lived in it ! People will think she has only one dress !” 
pleaded Clarice, in despairing accents. “ And the green 
costume is a perfect picture — vert tendre, mademoiselle !” 

Violet was putting her flowers in water. She dropped 
them hastily into the little vase, slightly uncomfortable as 
she thought why she had dissented from the maid’s choice. 

‘‘ Vert tendre be it,” she answered. 

“ And mademoiselle will look like an enchanted prin- 
cess,” cried Clarice, gratified, as humanity always is, by 
having her own way. But when half dressed, Violet 
glanced at the flowers. Surely she need not be ashamed to 
do so little a thing as wear a particular color to please a 
man who had saved her life. The absurdity was in hesi- 
tating — as if there were any reason why she should hesi- 
tate ! I don’t like the green ; I am too pale this evening. 
I shall wear white,” she said, with decision.” 

And white it was. Clarice never attempted expostula- 
tions when her mistress spoke in that tone. 

Her toilet completed, Violet took the bouquet, separa- 
ted it, put a part in her hair, and fastened the remainder in 
her corsage. As she was thus occupied, a bloom so delicate 
yet so rich stole into her cheeks, a light so brilliant yet so 
soft flooded her eyes, that when she turned from the mir- 


MI-GABEME, 


107 


ror, Clarice, with a magnanimity few mortals would have 
been capable of displaying after such recent rejection of 
their advice, cried out : 

Mademoiselle was right ! She is fairly dazzling !” 

You are a prejudiced little goose,” Violet said, laugh- 

But she was looking her loveliest, and she knew it. 
The vivid blue flowers over the white brought out the fair- 
ness of her neck, which the square-cut bodice revealed ; 
and the open sleeves showed the matchless arms, which 
were the admiration of every sculptor in Italy. 

Aylmer was standing near the door as she entered the 
drawing-room. He got no chance to speak, for the 
raarchese and the guests who had not yet seen her came 
forward to claim her attention. But Violet caught one 
glance from those dark eyes, so eloquent in its appreciation 
of her compliance with their owner’s wish that she had an 
uneasy sensation of having done wu’ong in obeying his 
caprice. 

Then Sabakine was sent by the hostess to bring Miss 
Cameron to the sofa where she was seated, and altogether 
Aylmer found no opportunity to address a word to her. 
and he betrayed his annoyance so plainly to the marchesa’s 
keen eyes that she took occasion to say in his ear : 

‘‘I told you this morning that after Carnival comes 
Lent.” 

So it does, and one submits ; but it is a shame of you 
to forget there is a mi-careme^'^ he replied, with a readiness 
which delighted the appreciative Russian. 

You are very near it — trust me,” she said. 

When they entered the dining-room he discovered what 
she meant. Of course. Miss Cameron fell to the host, but 
Aylmer’s seat was at her other hand. Nina, occupied by 
something Sabakine was narrating, found time to dart a 
quick glance towards Aylmer, and gave him an infinitesi- 
mal nod, which said distinctly : 

Mi-car erne at last, you see !” 

And if he had been her adorer instead of her friend, 
she could not have received a look of more fervent 
gratitude. 


108 


SET niGHT 


CHAPTER XI. 

SET EIGHT. 

O the dinner proved delightful to the young man ; 
one of those banquets of the gods whereof 
each of us has partaken in turn. 

In the drawing-room afterwards everything 
went well for a time. Under a pretense of 
wanting to smoke, Carlo and his friends strayed into a dis- 
tant salon ; Sabakine and Aylmer remained with the ladies, 
and a carree is by no means unpleasant to a man 

when he has not reached a stage where he is at liberty to 
utter his thoughts freely to the object of his fancy. 

But presently into the quiet came the sound of carriage 
wheels, and directly there appeared a knot of people suf- 
ficiently intimate with the marchesa to come uninvited for 
the purpose of enlivening her seclusion. 

Foremost among the group entered Giulia da Rimini, 
stately and Cleopatra-like as usual, on her lips that indolent 
half-smile, and in her heavy-lidded black eyes that inscruta- 
ble expression which Nina so cordially bated. The duchess 
took the explanation upon herself, making her voice dis- 
tinctly audible through the comments and laughter of her 
companions, low and unemphatically as she spoke : 

“We were all at the opera; it was worse than usual. 
Then nobody had a reception — nobody had offered a sup- 
per, so I proposed that we should drive out by moonlight 
and see you, Nina darling.” 

“You are always having happy inspirations, dear 
Giulia,” returned the marchesa, with her sweetest smile. 

“ Who would venture on a supper, duchess ?” exclaimed 
Sabakine. “ You have rendered that impossible by your 
brilliant success. I shall never pardon you for having given 
it while I was away.” 

Nina was in ecstacies — so was everybody else — but the 
duchess proved equal to the occasion. 

“I am ashamed now, prince, to recollect that our friends 
made themselves so charming, I had no opportunity to miss 
you,” said she, and passed on to greet Violet. “JVIy dear 



SET BIGHT. 


109 


]\[iss Cameron, what an unexpected pleasure ! Why, Mr. 
Aylmer, is this you or your double? I thought you safe at 
the sea-side, in the hands of your doctor.” 

‘‘ Heavens !” muttered Nina. “ If she could only teach 
people to tell falsehoods with such grace, she might earn a 
fprtune.” 

‘‘ She makes a very fair living at cards as it is,” returned 
Sabakine ; “ don’t suggest the idea, or between the two 
professions she will ruin us all.” 

Nina’s implied belief that the duchess had known whom 
she should meet was perfectly correct, and her proposal to 
her friends to drive out to the villa had been caused by that 
knowledge. 

Carlo had so far proved obdurate to every attempt to 
lure him back to his allegiance. If she changed her tactics, 
showed a willingness to let him go and give Aylmer the 
benefit of her smiles, the marchese might be roused to dis- 
pute the post of honor by her side, and she could then 
assert that her conduct had been inspired by a wish to pun- 
ish his lack of faith in her explanation of that unlucky visit 
to his friend’s sick-room. 

Society might say w^hat it liked about her ; so long as 
she did not violate certain conventionalities, Florence could 
not turn the cold shoulder — her position and family influ- 
ence would prevent that ; and if she avoided such penalty 
she cared little whether people called her a high-born 
swindler or names which designated vices more especially 
feminine. 

So to-night she affected a certain air of familiarity with 
Aylmer, still preserving her majestic indolence. She forced 
him to attend exclusively to her, and covertly watched Miss 
Cameron, in the hope that lady’s self-control would not 
be perfect enough to repress some sign of trouble or annoy- 
ance, in case Aylmer had gained any special hold upon her 
thoughts during the past weeks. 

But Miss Cameron, engrossed by half a dozen men, 
apparently found no leisure to notice the duchess and her 
compajiion. That Aylmer had a strong fancy for his beau- 
tiful countiy woman, the signora was able to decide to her 
own complete dissatisfaction. He could not keep his eyes 
off Violet ; he started each time the duchess’s voice recalled 
him to a sense of his duty, and once was positively guilty 
of the enormity of asking what she had said, and, to add to 


110 


SET RIGHT 


the crime, apologized for his absent-mindedness. These 
things nettled the lady ; still they acted as provocatives, 
and rendered her more determined and eager than ever to 
dazzle the man and bring him to her feet. 

“ Where is the marchese ?” she inquired. 

“In the card-room,” Aylmer replied. 

“ Of course ! I need not have asked ! I want to look 
on at the game — you know cards have a fascination for 
me.” 

He rose with alacrity, hoping that, once within sight 
of the table, her arch-passion would assert its supremacy 
and cause her to join the gamblers. 

“ Mr. Aylmer and I are going to see them play bacca- 
rat,” Giulia said to Madame Magnoletti. 

Nina had no objection. While courting the goddess 
Chance, Venus herself might stand close to Carlo, and he 
would offer no homage beyond an indifferent bow and 
smile ; besides, the marchesa never wavered in her con- 
viction, founded on a thorough knowledge of her husband’s 
character, that the capricious creature had escaped forever 
from the Sicilian’s thraldom. 

When Carlo looked up and saw the duchess beside his 
chair, he made a little grimace under his long mustache 
very like one of Nina’s childish moues. Giulia was leaning 
on Aylmer’s arm, apparently absorbed in his conversation 
even while- she tapped her host’s shoulder with her fan by 
way of salutation. Carlo’s Italian astuteness fathomed the 
signora's wiles as quickly as if he had been a woman, and 
his eyes brightened with sudden amusement when he 
glanced towards her companion. 

“ Is fortune favorable ?” she asked. “ How very cross 
Gherardi looks !” 

“Because you stopped beside Carlo’s chair instead of 
mine, duchessa 7nia^'^ said that gentleman. 

“ Has Carlo lost his tongue ?” she continued, employing 
the marchese’s Christian name with the familiarity so 
common in Italy, and so shocking to dignified Anglo- 
Saxons. 

“I was only trying to find some suitable phrase of 
welcome. You know I am a slow creature,” he answered. 
“ Useless, I suppose, to ask you to join us ?” 

“Later, perhaps,” she said, smiling at the manner in 
which the question was put. She fancied his tone 


SET BIGHT. 


Ill 


betrayed pique, and flattered herself that her new lino 
of conduct would speedily bring him out of his pretended 
indifference. 

The other players offered each some remark, then the 
duchess passed on. 

‘‘You do nptmean to play ?” Aylmer asked, finding it 
difficult to repress disappointment within decent limits. 

Indeed, his state of mind was perfectly evident to the^^^ 
marchesa when she niet them in the conservatory, where 
she had gone to show Sabakine and several other people 
some marvelous plant her brother had sent from America, 
and the mischievou^tlady derived great amusement from 
his sufferings, as she' adroitly allowed him to perceive. 

The duchess believed that he had determined, if possible, 
to resist her spells. In her present frame of mind this 
credence, instead of rousing her fierce temper, rendered 
her more bent on conquering him — that he strove against it 
was a proof he comprehended his danger. Did he want 
Violet Cameron’s money? Well, perhaps later she would 
help him win it, but just now the heiress should not stand 
in the way, either from the inducements her fortune offered 
or any caprice Aylmer might have for the lady herself. 

Altogether, nearl}^ an hour elapsed before the wretched 
man could escape. The duchess recollected that she must 
not let Carlo’s pique attain too keen an edge, else it would 
not serve the purpose for which she meant to employ it. 
Aylmer deposited her at the card-table with the ungrateful 
reflection that he knew exactly how Sinbad felt when he got 
rid of the Old Man of the Sea, and hastened away. 

Madame da Rimini was not sorry to see him go. She 
knew tliat when she wished to fascinate, she never ought to 
play cards in the presence of her victim. In ten minutes 
she had forgotten Aylmer — everything — in the interest of 
the game. Her eyes blazed with a cold, keen flame like that 
on Damascus steel ; her mouth set so hard that the lips were 
a mere scarlet thread ; two deep lines disfigured her fore- 
head ; her fingers shut with claw-like tenacity : her atti- 
tude so fixed and rigid that the cords stood out on her neck, 
and marred her chief beauty, till she seemed suddenly to 
have grown years older. 

Nina and Sabakine stopped to exchange observations 
concerning her as they strolled through the room. 

“She is actually unrecognizable,” Nina said. 


113 


SET RIGHT 


‘‘One sees the real woman,” he replied : “a horrible 
caricature of what she manages to appear under ordinary 
circumstances.” 

“She is a dreadful creature !” ejaculated Nina. 

“Well, yes. If she had not had the good luck to be 
born grande dame^ she would undoubtedly have found her 
way to the galleys before now. Thanks to her being Maz- 
zolini’s daughter and wearing Rimini’s title, she will prob- 
ably manage to die decently in her bed,” said Sabakine, 
with that entire freedom of speech concerning acquaintan- 
ces which is so marked a characteristic of Florentine society. 

“ Where is the duke now ?” 

“ In Paris, as usual. They divide France and Italy be- 
tween them, and manage to keep the best friends in the 
world. ‘ Unefeynme forte^ he said to me last spring, in 
speaking of her ; ‘ but she gives me an abnormal taste for 
human blood — an unfortunate mania on my part, as it jH-e- 
vents my enjoying her society.’ ” 

“ He is worse than she !” 

“ Hum ! I could not say that. He as nearly approaches 
her gifts as a man can. But he is wise to remain in Paris. 
There is no doubt that on the last visit he paid the house 
of his ancestors she set fire to his bed-curtains when he was 
asleep, and locked him in his room.” 

“ I never did quite believe that story.” 

“ He told me himself as a good joke ; it would have 
been a better one if he had burned to death, as he came 
near doing.” 

Aylmer found Miss Cameron in the drawing-room, but 
she was so constantly surrounded that he could not get 
within reach ; and he wandered about in a restless fashion, 
hoping that at least after the guests’ departure he might 
have her for a few minutes to himself ; but when he came 
back from seeing some lady to her carriage, Violet had dis- 
appeared. 

“ Miss Cameron has gone to bed, like a sensible woman,” 
said Nina, “ and I shall follow her example — I am tired to 
death. My Russian bored me. Carlo has been losing money, 
and you have neglected me shamefully, Mr. Aylmer. The 
world is dust and ashes, and I shall go to sleep. Good- 
night.” 

After she had gone. Carlo, who prided himself on con- • 
ducting his household according to English principles in 


SET BIGHT. 


113 


many ways, asked Aylmer to have some sort of liquid re- 
fresiiment and a cheroot — oblivious that his Anglo-mania 
failed in the present instance, as he was drinking orgeat 
and seltzer instead of brandy and soda, and his smoking- 
room, as usual, the place where he chanced to be when in a 
mood for a cigarette. 

But Aylmer declined these mild Italian attempts at dis- 
sipation, and went off to his chamber, feeling that the 
evening, which began so charmingly, had ended in a very 
dismal fashion. 

The next morning the professor came out to see his late 
patient, and amused them all by his account of an inter- 
view with Miss Bronson. He had gone to the house, un- 
aware of Miss Cameron’s absence, and found Eliza in a very 
elevated mood, from the effects of an sssthetic tea given by 
some old maid on the previous evening. 

She delivered a long lecture upon his heterodoxy, warn- 
ing him of the evil repute it would bring in this world and 
the Dives-like destiny it must inevitably procure in the 
next. He drove her nearly frantic by declaring that the 
book he had so often proposed to dedicate to her was ready 
for the press, and improvised an inscription which asserted 
that her sympathy with his peculiar views had been his 
sweetest solace during the long hours devoted to the prep- 
aration of the volume. 

I left her in tears,” said the professor, with grim de- 
light ; ‘^and I affected to think it was the proof of my 
esteem which touched her. The more she tried to explain 
and to reject my friendship and my heresies, the duller and 
deafer I grew. At the hour it is, I am certain she has as- 
sembled a conclave of all the spinsters among her acquaint- 
ance, and is searching for some means to avert the awful 
fate which hangs over her.” 

Aylmer was haunted by a fear that he had fallen in 
Miss Cameron’s esteem. He could not say that her manner 
had changed — she talked freely and pleasantly ; but, in 
spite of his efforts to believe himself mistaken, the impres- 
sion remained in his mind that a certain distance had come 
between them — as if he suddenly stood on the footing of a 
mere acquaintance, instead of enjoying the friendly rela- 
tions which had grown up during his convalescence. ' 

But in what way could he exculpate himself ? He in- 
wardly rebelled, as circumstances often force a man to do, 


114 


SET RIGHT. 


against sundry injustices in the social code which give 
women like the duchess an opportunity to place him in a 
very unpleasant position without the privilege of defense — ■ 
a position where silence is self-condemnation, yet to open 
his lips must make him appear a conceited idiot. 

The marchese and Aylmer were in the billiard-room 
before dinner. Aylmer was saying that he must drive into 
town to inquire concerning some letters which had failed 
to arrive. 

“ Keep out of the duchess’s way,” said Carlo, who was 
almost as much given to teasing as the professor himself. 
“If she gets those pretty tiger-claws of hers on you, my 
friend, you will not be allowed to come back to us.” 

“Confound the duchess!” returned Aylmer. “Kever 
— never — in any country did I meet a woman so odious ! 
I used to wonder how you could dance attendance upon 
her, but I see you have recovered from your folly.” 

“ Come, come, that is turning the tables on poor me 
with a vengeance, just because I gave you a friendly coun- 
sel out of the goodness of my heart 1” 

“Your goodness of heart be — blessed !” said Aylmer. 

“ I saw how she was worrying you last night,” con- 
tinued Carlo, laughing. “ I would have gone to your res- 
cue, only I was busy. If you wouldn’t make it so plain 
that you are blind to her fascinations, la belie Giulia would 
ten to one let you alone.” 

Before Aylmer could reply. Miss Cameron came in from 
the conservatory. 

“ Marchese,” said she, “ Kina says you purloined the 
little microscope the professor gave me yesterday. Posi- 
tively, you are as bad as a magpie for hiding everything 
you can pick up in your pockets.” 

“ Friend of my soul, magpies don’t wear pockets. It is 
odd that though the feminine mind conceives comparisons 
in profusion, they are always incorrect,” cried Carlo. 

“Less incorrect than your habit of petty larceny — it 
quite amounts to — to — what is that long word, Mr. Aylmer, 
which it is proper to use when a marquis steals, instead of 
a poor common wretch who must go to prison therefor ?” 

“ Kleptomania, do vou mean V” 

“ Exactly ! Take care, Carlo, or it will lead you to a 
lunatic asylum ! Do you intend to give me my microscope ? 
We want to examine some leaves.” 


SET EIGHT. 


115 


What a persistent creature! I have lost it — I never 
had it — I gave it back to you,” said Carlo, huntiirg in the 
multifarious recesses of his coat, which he fondly believed a 
thoroughly English garment, and finally pulling out the 
desired article. 

“ Here it is, after all ; I must have picked it up by 
accident.” 

‘‘ I notice that your sins are always committed by acci- 
dent,” returned Violet, and I never knew a man who met 
with so many misfortunes.” 

“ All the same, I suppose Aylmer and I may go and look 
at the leaves ; he is an ignorant young person, and needs to 
improve his mind in various ways.” 

“I certainly chose ill when I selected your society for 
that purpose, my dear Carlo,” rejoined Laurence. 

‘‘ You will have to adopt his pet excuse — the victim of 
accident, Mr. Aylmer,” said Violet. 

She spoke carelessly ; she smiled with even more indif- 
ference, yet Laurence’s heart bounded ; he knew that his 
peace was made — the distance had been bridged over — the 
ice which had spread between them, chilling him to the 
soul, imperceptible as it was, had melted suddenly — he was 
back in June warmth again. 

She had heard the marchese’s words — fortune had 
favored him indeed. He could have hugged the uncon- 
scious bringer-about of this present state of affairs. 

‘‘After all, one can’t help liking him in s])ite of his 
errors !” said Laurence, clapping Carlo on the shoulder by 
way of giving a little relief to his feelings. 

“ Praise is sweet, but it may be too forcibly expressed,” 
said the marchese, pretending to groan. 

“ May we go and have a peep through the microscope. 
Miss Cameron !” Aylmer inquired. A few minutes befoi'e 
he would have felt as if taking a liberty in asking anything 
of her, but his courage was entirely restored. 

“ Violet Cameron !” Hina called from the terrace upon 
which the windows of the billiard-room opened. “ If you 
think to leave me to study botany alone, while you mono- 
polize the only two men available, you do not know the 
woman with whom you have to deal ! I am amiable and I 
am self-sacrificing, but there are limits, I warn you !” 

“ She might at least have sent you the microscope,” said 
Carlo, “ if she had any conscience.” 


116 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


‘‘The most powerful microscope ever invented would 
fail to discover any such treasure in your anatomy,” re- 
torted Nina. 

“ What did I say about women’s inability to make com- 
parisons ?” cried Carlo, triumphantly. “ Angel of the house, 
conscience is not a treasure — learn that before you turn on 
your husband when he generously comes to your assist- 
ance.” 

“ And a statement is not a comparison, Master Carlo,” 
said Yiolet ; “ learn that.” 

“ Oh, good heavens ! These displays of rhetoric all 
come from the professor’s leaving that horrid microscope ; 
pray break it, Mr. Aylmer, or there will be no living with 
the pair,” cried Nina. 

The three joined her on the terrace and laughed and 
talked nonsense and were very happy, while the day 
drew to its close and the western sky waxed glorious as if 
the farthest heavens had suddenly opened Woods and 
fields glowed with amber radiance — the very highway 
became a band of dazzling light — the river a halo. In the 
distance appeared beautiful Florence, a sweep of burnislied 
roofs and glittering walls — G-iotto’s tower and the vast 
dome of the cathedral rising in the midst, while on the 
height above, San Miniato’s church seemed floating in space ; 
every object glorified, transfigured, by the supernal light. 


CHAPTER XII. 
THREE-A]Srr)-THIRTY. 

HE four spent many such idle, pleasant hours, 
and time fled with the rapidity it displays when 
life has reached, as it does occasionally, a season 
where no important event occurs to mark its 
course, though each day is so full of tranquil 
enjoyment that our usually restless souls forget to lookback 
or forward. 

Their intimacy with Nina and Carlo insensibly drew 
Violet and Laurence Aylmer into an intimacy almost aa 



THREE^AND- THIR TT. 


117 


complete, affording them an opportunity to become more 
thoroughly acquainted with each other’s real clnracters 
than months of ordinary intercourse could have done. 

On the eighth day Lady Harcourt drove out to the villa, 
and insisted upon taking Carlo home with her to dine and 
meet some friends whom she had invited. 

I must have an even number,” she said, ‘‘and of course 
Nina and Violet can more easily spare the mated masculine 
bird than the one with undipped wings.” 

At table the marchesa Vv’as seized with a nervous head- 
ache, and obliged to go to her room. 

“ As you both belong to the Anglo-Saxon race, I need 
not offer any absurd excuses, or carry Miss Cameron off,” 
she said. “ I will lie down awhile ; then I shall be ready 
for some tea and your united fascinations. Make yourself 
agreeable, Mr. Aylmer, and remember I give you permis- 
sion to smoke — Violet doesn’t mind in the least, sensible 
creature that she is. You shall have your coffee on the 
terrace. It is a shame to stop in-doors such a lovely night. 
And now I will retire, while I can do so wdth grace and 
elegance.” 

So the two guests were left to entertain each other. 

“ We were told not to stop in the house,” Violet said, 
w^alking towards an open window. “ Obedience and incli- 
nation can be united for once. What a marvelous evening !” 

Aylmer followed lier out upon the terrace, and they sat 
down. The old major-domo came with the coffee-tray, and 
placed it on a tiny table between them. He brought also 
a wrap for Miss Cameron, saying : 

“ Pardon, signorina : but one gets a chill so easily.” 

“ Hardly in this weather, Pietro ; it is like summer,” 
she said, amused at his addressing her by that girlish title. 

“ And not weather to be trusted, because it is unseason- 
able,” persisted Pietro. 

“ Certainly this is the realization of one’s dreams about 
an Italian autumn,” Aylmer said, as he put the shawl over 
Violet’s shoulders. 

“Yes, and you are very fortunate, since it is your first 
experience. As a rule, the nights at this season are almost 
as sharp here in Tuscany as in our own middle States.” 

They sipped their coffee and conversed in a desultory 
fashion upon any and every subject that chanced to float 
up — of their friends, Carlo and Nina, people in Florence, 


118 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


some new books, the lovely effect of the moon on the hills, 
the tint^ a painter would require to express the shadows 
the cypresses cast — shadows which looked black, but were 
not, one discovered, after studying them. 

Gradually the conversation grew more earnest, as talk 
about books brought forth individual opinions ; and sitting 
there in the moonlight, Violet Cameron’s loveliness height- 
ened tenfold, and wrought its natural effect upon the man 
beside her. 

A brief silence ensued ; something Aylmer said set 
Violet dreaming, and he did not recall her ; but when she 
glanced towards him, he was regarding her so earnestly, 
with such involuntary revealings in his eyes, that she felt 
the color deepen in her cheek. 

“ I was wondering where you had gone,” said he. 

“ I was only watching the moon,” she answered. 

‘‘More than that — you looked as if your soul had 
drifted off into the farthest brightness.” 

“ How very poetical !” 

“ That was the way you looked. I began to fear you 
would never come back. It would have been worse than 
the distance that seemed to come between us just at the 
beginning of our visit here,” he said, trying to speak jest- 
ingly, though an undertone of earnestness was very per- 
ceptible. 

“ Now that is more fanciful than your other poetry,” 
returned she. 

“No, no,” he said, “it was not fancy ; and I felt quite 
frozen — as if I had been exiled into some bleak Arctic 
region.” 

“I hope you have come back from your exile,” she 
answered, laughing, though with a little effort. “ It must 
have been voluntary.” 

“Indeed, no. But I have come back — please don’t 
banish me again,” he pleaded, with an impulsiveness the 
more striking, the more attractive, too, from its contrast to 
the usually quiet manner which made him appear older 
than he was. “ Say you will not ! If I do anything, or 
seem to do anything of which you disapprove, try to think 
you misunderstand — to believe I would cut my right hand 
off sooner than risk your censure.” 

Before he finished the sentence he had ceased even to 
attempt a pretense of playfulness. 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


119 


At least I can assure you there is no distance of my 
making between us,” she said. But this phrase did not ex- 
actly suit the exigencies of the case, so she continued, be- 
fore he could speak : “ No distance at all, I mean. I hope 

we are very good friends. You may be certain that if I 
do misjudge you — and I may often, being an impatient 
woman — I shall never hesitate to atone for my blunder.” 

“ Thanks !” he exclaimed, with more emphasis than was 
necessary, extending his hand as he spoke. 

Now Violet did not want to take his hand ; it would 
give a seriousness to the explanation from which she 
shrank, yet to refuse might appear a ridiculous, prudish 
calling him to order. Still she hesitated, vexed with her- 
self for so doing, as a rapid question flitted through her 
mind. Was she afraid ? if so, of whom — him or herself? 

And he was waiting with his hand outstretched, his 
eyes on her face — only a second, of course, long as the in- 
terval seemed to her. She got her wits back — oh ! the 
shame of having lost them even for the space necessary to 
demand the reason of her soul ! She tapped his fingers 
lightly with her fan, and said : 

“This is not a last dying speech, that we should grow 
tragic over it.” 

“ I told you those weeks of imprisonment had made me 
exigeant,” returned he, trying to speak calmly. “ But, 
after all, it is not my fault — everybody spoiled me.” 

“ Then I suppose we must have patience with our own 
work, unless you make it absolutely necessary for us to put 
you on a moral diet of bread and water,” said she, with a 
radiant smile, which set his heart beating so rapidly that he 
almost thought she must hear its pulsations. 

“ You could not fail to be kind and generous,” he 
answered, the unsteadiness of his voice giving a signifi- 
cance to his words which made them too earnest for mere 
compliment. “ I will try to deserve it — at least you may 
be sure of that.” 

The tone, the eager look in his eyes startled Violet still 
further out of that deceitful calmness which she had kept 
unbroken during the past days by treating her own soul 
with as much reticence as if it had been a stranger’s, but 
she replied with assumed lightness : 

“ Take care you keep your good resolutions. If that 


120 


THREE^AND- THIRTY. 


were as easy in practice as it is in theory, what admirable 
creatures we should all be !” 

I never felt my own failures as I do since I have 
known you. You are so much better and nobler than 
other women that you make one ashamed of common 
thoughts and aims,” he cried, carried so completely beyond 
self-control that he could not weigh his speech. 

He had never spoken like this. Violet’s troubled sensa- 
tion grew stronger, not at the words themselves — she was 
too accustomed to men’s flatteries to have noticed these — 
but the tone in which they were uttered — the passion of 
his eyes, which said so much more than voice or phrase — 
fairly confused her, and rendered difficult theeflbrtto treat 
his remark lightly, skilled as she was in the knowledge 
whereby a woman accustomed to society increases her 
natural feminine tact. 

“ You forget, pnly yesterday we agreed that exaggerated 
compliments were very uncomplimentary things in reality,” 
said she, laughing; “ a presupposing of inordinate vanity on 
her part who receives them.” 

‘‘You know I did not intend a compliment — I was just 
thinking aloud !” he exclaimed, each instant carried further 
away from the restraint he had hitherto managed to put 
upon himself. 

“Monologues went out along with the old-fashioned 
novels,” returned she, that effort at playfulness growing 
still more difficult. 

“ I seem to know you so well ; all those weeks of illness 
make the beginning of our acquaintance look so far off. 
Oh, I don’t think it had any beginning wffiere I was con- 
cerned ; it was just as if I had found something I had lost 
and been searching for ever since.” 

She was so beautiful in her quiet pose ; the moonlight 
made her complexion so unearthly in its fairness, her eyes 
so superhuman in their dark glow, that the man lost his 
head altogether ; forgot all his wise resolves, forgot every- 
thing save that in this glorious creature he had found the 
ideal perfection which had haunted his fancy so long. 

What did he say — what did she answer? Neither 
could have told ! He did not make love to her in the or- 
dinary sense of the phrase, but he let his whole soul out as 
he hurried on in eager talk of those blessed days when she 
brightened his sick-room with her presence, and Violet was 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


121 


moved by his eloquence to forget for a few moments that 
just below the height to which his imagination had floated 
them, the bleak rocks of reality showed sharp and cruel in 
the common light of the common world. 

Then the very fire of his speech forced reflection upon 
her. What did this language mean? Was she to think 

that his heart Oh, she would not even complete the 

absurd thought ! Mere compliments — empty trash — such 
as young men talked to any woman tolerably pretty and at- 
tractive, who chanced to sit with them in the moonlight ! 
Part of a young man’s education, but not the style of conver- 
sation for her to listen to — for her, sobered by the weight of 
her three-and-thirty years ! How nonsensical to be fluttered 
even for an instant ! Was it possible that the dreamy 
idleness of these past days, whose spell upon himself he de- 
scribed so vividly, had enthralled her too ? No, no ! Back 
to the realm of common-sense and commonplace ! Wis- 
dom, Violet Cameron, wisdom ! An old maid — yes, an 
old maid ! No Juliet of eighteen on her balcony with 
Romeo below ; a spinster, well on towards middle age, 
just as near as if her face were plain and wrinkled already 
(as it ought to be), instead of keeping, from some absurd 
freak of nature, a semblance of youth — a cruel freak, 
since it exposed her to this — to the bitter consciousness 
that not only had fancy led him astray, but she, she had 
let the charm of this lotus-flower-crowned season wile her 
into forgetfulness. 

And all the while he went on speaking, and all the while 
her heart and soul were thrilled by his eager words, even 
in the midst of her ability to listen to the upbraidings of 
her suddenly-roused judgment. 

What was he saying — oh, what was he saying? 

^^Ah, admit that all these things at once put our 
acquaintance on an exceptional footing — that they prevent 
my seeming just like the ordinary crowd about — at least 
say so much !” 

“We are very good friends, and mean to stay so,” she 
heard her voice say, not vspeaking froni any volition of her 
own ; she felt as if some guardian power spoke through 
her, good-natured enough to wish to save them both future 
pain : save him at least — no matter about her — an old 
maid’s sufferings from a wounded heart were only laugh- 
able ! Well, well ! in order to waken hini it was only 


122 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


necessary to tell her age ; his dream — if he had been 
dreaming — had occupied his imagination merely — a young 
man’s fancy ! Yes, tell her age and he would speedily dis- 
cover that he had deceived himself in regard to his heart 
having stirred, just as her face by its deceitful smoothness 
had deceived him into a belief that she was young enough 
to be the cause of such commotion. 

“ How old are you ?” she asked, abruptly. 

Aylmer was not exactly confused, but a little taken 
back by this interruption to his blank verse. Some vague 
remembrance of speculations in regard to her years, which 
he had several times overheard, flitted through his mind — 
influenced his reply too. 

“ I am twenty-eight,” he said ; at least I shall be so 
soon that I may call it my age.” 

He was exactly three months and four days past twenty- 
seven, but then mathematical precision always sounds sen- 
tentious and absurd ! 

‘‘ I am twenty-eight,” he repeated, as if the second as- 
sertion would do away with the fact of the birthday not 
having yet arrived. 

‘‘ And I am thirty-four ; at least (to quote your words), 
I shall be so soon that I may call it ray age,” returned she, 
with the merriest laugh that ever made music on the lips 
of a girl at sixteen. Laugh she would — laugh gayly too, 
if the eflPort killed her : though if she could not have 
laughed, she would have been ready to kill herself, she said 
mentally. 

I am trying to relate events exactly as they occurred 
— to give a description of feelings just as they arose, 
whether wise or foolish, orderly or inconsequent — so I 
must tell the whole. Aylmer felt as if he had suddenly 
received a douche of ice-water full on his fired fancy ! 
An unmarried woman of four-and-thirty is almost an old 
woman — that was the one conscious, stupid thought in his 
mind. 

“ Yes, I am thirty-four,” continued Violet, still follow- 
ing his speeches as models — no bitterness, no hesitation in 
her tone — her voice soft, airy, careless, and full of enjoy- 
ment. Somehow, she did feel a certain triumph, as if 
crushing her own vanity. Later, a measure of sadness 
and regret might mingle with the remembrance, but for 
the instant the comical side of the situation appealed to 


THEEE-AND- TEIE TY. 


123 


her, and her amusement was perfectly genuine. Too 
old, you see, not to have exhausted the pleasure of exag- 
gerated compliments ; especially averse to being treated to 
them by my friends — my real friends.” 

Still under the influence of that sensation, which I can. 
only describe by ray comparison of the douche of ice-water, 
he looked at her again as she sat laughing — her eyes bril- 
liant, her color heightened, her complexion soft and trans- 
parent as a child’s. She was jesting — quoting the verdict 
of some envious woman — curious to see if he would 
credit it. 

“ No doubt you will be thirty, and thirty-four, if you 
live long enough,” he said, laughing too. 

He recognized the doleful coinmonplaceness of the 
remark, but he was too determined to consider what she 
had said a joke to attempt compliments which might imply 
any faith in its having been serious. 

A certain bitterness seized Violet ; whether towards him 
on account of his unbelief, or against Fate for its cruelty, 
she could not have told. 

Must I bring a cei'tiflcate of birth in order to end 
your courteous doubts ?” she asked. I shall be thirty- 
four years old within the twelvemonth.” 

She was in earnest, he perceived that. Further expres- 
sion of incredulity would appear an impertinence. Yet 
never had he seen her look younger — never so beautiful ! 

“ You’d better not let the girls of seventeen know the 
fact, else they will certainly strangle you,” he blurted forth, 
with a school-boy sort of honesty so ludicrously out of keep- 
ing with his six feet of stateliness that somehow the answer 
sounded as complimentary as it did absurd. 

“ Promising young man !” cried Violet, laughing again, 
though now her laughter stung away down close to her 
heart. “ But no more pretty speeches, please. I told you 
the truth to do away with the necessity. I am tired of sugary 
talk ; I have had enough ! No need of it, even between 
a man and a woman, when the two are friends.” 

She held out her hand, recollecting as she did so how a 
few instants previous she had shrunk from accepting his ; 
but the recollection only rendered her more resolute in her 
frankness — she was three-and-thirty, and could claim the 
privileges of her age. 

But the spell of her beauty was too potent for any wise 


124 


TUI lEE-AND- TUIRTT, 


warning of hers, any flash of disappointment, long to affect 
its influence ; it surged back with redoubled force from the 
very reaction of that brief shock. 

Friends !” he echoed, pressing his lips upon her fingers. 

lie might have said more — have shown her that he pro- 
nounced the word in repudiation of his willingness to be 
kept upon the calm ground of friendship, but she prevented 
any such dangerous avowal by interpreting his exclamation 
into an acceptance of her tacitly-proposed treaty. 

‘‘ That is right — thanks ! And now you will remember 
that flowery phrases are a little — just a little out of place- 
say twelve or thirteen years too late !” 

Her determined jesting, though it hurt and vexed him, 
produced one fortunate effect — it brought a conviction that 
if he did not acquiesce in thus pushing the conversation 
back to an ordinary footing, he should risk vitally injuring 
his own cause, and, agitated as he was, he managed with 
more address than many men would have shown. 

I’ll weed out all the flowers carefully henceforth,” he 
said, trying to imitate her playful tone. 

“ The sure way to keep me good-natured,” she answered. 

The rose-bud style makes me feel silly.” 

“ Oh, there are exceptions to all ordinary rules,” said he. 

If you will have eternal youth you must take the conse- 
quences, as the few other women so endowed had to do in 
their time.” 

He stopped short. Ninon’s name had been on his lips 
as a comparison ; then he remembered that Ninon and 
every other woman whom history had chronicled as hold- 
ing, past youth, past middle age, the undiramed love- 
liness which gave them absolute sovereignty over men’s 
hearts, had been women whose conduct rendered any refer- 
ence to their names exceedingly out of place in this con- 
nection. 

“ True,” said Violet, quickly, by the strange clairvoy- 
ance which the great sympathy between their minds gave 
her, reading his thought as plainly as if it had been uttered. 

But unfortunately, as you reflected after speaking, all the 
examples you can think of were wicked women.” 

Oh !” he exclaimed, with an indescribable impatience. 

Well, well, I am sorry they were bad,” said she, piti 
lessly. 

“ And to coraj are ” 


THREE- AND- THIRTY. 


125 


Yes, yes, never mind — don’t be shocked. Recollect 
that a woman of my a^e has a right to talk freely on all sub- 
jects. The years which have lost mo youth give some 
compensation — I may say things a girl could not, and yet 
be neither indecorous nor indelicate.” 

She resolved to cure him effectually — to cure herself 
too, or rather so to sear any possible wound by the hot iron 
of sarcastic speech, that it should close and heal without 
delay. The scar would remain, no doubt — ah, even physi- 
cal wounds received after early youth leave an indelible 
scar ! Well, the sight of it, maybe the ache of it now and 
then, would be good for her soul. 

She found time, in the instant which followed her last 
remark, to elaborate with womanly quickness her thought 
much further and more clearly than I, with my clumsy pen, 
have been able to express in that paragraph of description, 
yet be ready before he could speak to pursue her advantage 
by another thrust of the hot iron which was to scorch them 
both into recovery. 

“ Good heavens ! surely I may say what I like ! Past 
thirty-three ! Why, if I had married at sixteen, as^so many 
American girls do, I might have almost grown-up daugh- 
ters about me. No freedom of speech would have been 
considered unfitting then.” 

She had overdone her work ! He looked at her as she 
spoke, immortal in her youth apparently, rose quickly, and 
held out his arm, saying : 

‘‘ Come into the house a moment, please.” 

She obeyed, thinking that, whatever his reason for the 
demand, compliance therewith would put an end to the con- 
versation, which had gone far enough. 

He led her into the salon, where the lamps were buiming 
brightly, and, before she suspected his intention, conducted 
her towards a great mirror and pointed to the radiant 
image shining therein. 

I can’t help laughing,” he said ; it is too absurd.” 

Violet gave one glance at their figures reflected side by 
side, and turned quickly, saying, with as much iciness as 
her voice could muster : 

Facts are stubborn things ; dates the stubbornest facts 
of all.” 

“ I don’t care about dates,” cried he ; they have no 
significance when so utterly refuted. I don’t care !” 


12G 


SHE ACCUSED HEESELF. 


‘‘ But I do,” said Violet, and removed her hand from 
his arm. 

Before lie could answer, Nina appeared in the doorway, 
exclaiming : 

‘‘ Oh, there you are ! My headache is quite gone. 
Please to amuse me and make me forget my dreadful 
dream ! I saw Giulia da Rimini pushing a woman over a 
preci23ice, and I screamed out ; and it was you, Violet — I 
saw your face then. *Mr. Aylmer was trying to save you, 
and somebody — a young girl — looking helplessly on ! Oh, 
it was horrible ! don’t let me think about it ! Ring the 
bell. Signor Lorenzo ; we will have some tea. I need it, 
and you ought to, after all my trouble in my dreams about 
you both.” 


CHAPTER XIII. 

SHE ACCUSED HERSELF, 

LONE in her room that night, Violet sat down 
opposite her mirror, looked sternly at the 
reflection therein, and began to ask it certain 
questions, determined to have them answered 
if she waited till the sun rose. 

What ailed her — what had come over her during these 
past weeks — and to what must she attribute the strange 
mental aberration whereof she boldly accused herself ? 

Laurence Aylmer had conceived a fancy for her — very 
probably he called it love ; a young man’s fancy was the 
correct name, and Violet nodded severely as she put that 
portion of her soliloquy into words. 

You are not a girl, not even a very young woman, 
that I should call in any modest reticence to your aid,” she 
told the image, which smiled at this remark, thereupon 
appearing so youthful in its radiant loveliness that Violet 
cried out in wrath : You may try with all your might to 
look twenty-four, but you are an old maid just the same ! 
You will be four-and-thirty your next birthday, miss — you 
can’t delude me 

But this thrust, which gave her the more satisfaction 



SHE ACCUSED HEBSELF. 


127 


because it hurt either Iier heart or vanity, had no effect on 
the image ; it smiled at her still, serene in the arrogance of 
beauty. 

Four-and-thirty !” repeated Violet, venomously, and 
tried to wrinkle her forehead, but the image would only 
copy her pretty dimples, apparently regarding the frown 
as a mere shadow not worth photographing. 

“ He is seven-and-twenty,” pursued Violet ; seven- 
and-twenty — why, a boy still, who must indulge in a score 
of fancies before he learns what love means ! And you 
like him — yes, you do ! I am too much ashamed of you to 
give a stronger name, though you deserve it. And you 
have been dreaming about fate, and called your acquaint- 
ance with him something set outside common laws, because 
a few little romantic circumstances surrounded its com- 
mencement. And you never have loved anybody ; destiny 
wasted your girlhood so far as love was concerned — except 
once, and then you had neither soul nor brains to appre- 
ciate the man who came to you with the offering of his 
great heart — a man worth a score of this Romeo you are 
poetizing over !” 

But here the image looked such utter and overwhelming 
unbelief, that Violet was forced to retract the assertion if 
she desired to fulfill her vow of being perfectly honest. 

ISTo, I don’t mean that. He is as clever and honorable 
and good as he is handsome ; oh, I am not afraid to speak 
the truth !” and she fairly shook her clenched hand in the 
glass. Then hearing her own voice clear and distinct, 
started and glanced over her shoulder, with a nervous 
fancy that she was not alone with her own reflection in the 
mirror, but that some supernatural agency was directing 
the whole matter. A sudden feeling of pity struck her foi: 
that beautiful face, and she exclaimed : “ It is hard — hard ! 
Life gives you everything when it is too late — too late !” 

She leaned her head upon the table and sobbed like 
a child, she, whose tears so seldom flowed without good 
reason, and then were usually caused by the woes of others, 
not her own. 

In the commonplace light of the morning, Violet felt 
reassured of her own strength — felt a little grave, sad too ; 
naturally, she admitted, after recalling the chill uneventful- 
ness of her girlhood, the emptiness of that spring which 
ought to have held experiences enough to crowd all later 


128 


SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 


years so full of happy memories that even age would not 
appear barren. 

This thought kept her from being ashamed of her tears. 
She had reason to regret her youth, left void of what ren- 
ders youth beautiful. Neither gratified dreams nor hopes 
had come within its reach ; it had waned and died without 
attaining youth’s highest apotheosis — love. She had been 
defrauded, and neither here nor hereafter could existence 
atone for the wrong. She might be happy in this world 
and the next, but that void in memory would always 
remain. No compensation could be made her ; the blank 
could never be filled, because it was now too late to let her 
heart waken, even if the enchanter were to call with such 
power that his voice sounded like the summons of Destiny 
itself. 

Love was for the young ; to her age belonged moderate 
sentiments. Friendship, esteem, affection, if one pleased ; 
but four-and-thirty and love were anomalies as absurd as 
low-necked dresses on some spinster of Eliza Bronson’s 
years, and the consequent display of bones which had done 
such good service for half a century, that it seemed at once 
ridiculous and unfeeling to expose them now. 

The very passion of Violet’s mood would have proved 
to another person that in spite of her assertions she had 
not reached a stand-point so wholly within the control of 
reason and common-sense as she believed. Some vague 
idea of this nature occurred to her, and she gave a new 
fling at the image, which, though a little pale and sad-eyed, 
only looked the more lovely in its softened guise. 

It is silly even to think of what might have been,” 
Violet said to her victim ; wicked too — a rebellion against 
Providence.” 

The image stared at her with a sudden bitter smile on 
its beautiful mouth — a sudden fire in its beautiful eyes, and 
seemed to say : 

“ I hate Providence then, if it is the fault of Providence 
that I am to have no youth !” 

Violet started up, frightened, as you and I have been 
more than once when our souls have cried out with super- 
natural strength against their human miseries, roused by 
some catastrophe to utter the unanswerable demand of a 
reason for those griefs and disappointments, to bear which 


SUE ACCUSED HERSELF. 


139 


has seemed at such moments the sole ground to assign for 
our creation. 

As Violet was leaving the hands of the skillful Clarice, 
the roll of carriage-wheels became audible ; voices, too, 
from below made themselves heard in the dressing-room, 
situated in an angle of the building that commanded a view 
of the entrance. 

‘‘ Why, I am sure it is Mademoiselle Bronsone !” ex- 
claimed Clarice, running to a window and peeping out. 
‘Wes, yes, it is — and the professor. She weeps, the poor 
demoiselle — oh, how she weeps !” 

“ What can be the matter ?” cried Violet, hastening to- 
wards the door. 

“Mademoiselle should not disquiet herself,” counseled 
Clarice, philosophically. “ The good Demoiselle Bron-sone 
weeps so easily ! The professor laughs ; he pretends to be 
comforting her — but he laughs, the wicked one ! He is 
always happy to tease the poor lady ! It is nothing — mad- 
emoiselle may be assured it is nothing.” 

When Violet reached the lower corridor, she saw her 
friend standing in the door, talking excitedly to old Pietro, 
though with no other effect than to make him look utterly 
helpless and imbecile, as in her agitation she spoke English, 
while the professor leaned, calm and dignified, against a 
pillar, regarding her with his most Sphinx-like smile. 

“ I want Violet !” moaned Eliza, breaking off in what 
appeared to be some recital of disaster, and turning des- 
perately upon the sage. “ Oh, professor, don’t stand tliere 
like a bronze statue, but say it so the creature can under- 
stand, for I am so troubled that I cannot speak my own 
language, much less his ! Violet — I must see Violet !” 

“ And here she is,” said that lady, moving forward. 

Miss Bronson uttered a shriek and fell upon her neck, 
weeping bitterly. Pietro discreetly disappeared, and, in 
his wicked enjoyment of the spinster’s distress, the pro- 
fessor stood on his left foot, and with difficulty kept from 
waving his right leg in the air after a fashion which would 
have been highly unbecoming a man of his reputation and 
scientific acquirements. 

“ I hope there is nothing serious the matter,” said 
Violet, loosening the clasp of Eliza’s arms, so as to be able 
to breathe and speak. 

6 * 


130 


SHE ACCUSED HEESELF. 


Matter !” groaned Miss Bronson, and paused, choked 
by sobs. 

How do you do, Fraulein ?” asked the professor, as 
beamingly as if Eliza had been chanting a humorous ditty. 
‘‘We have come to make you an early visit — give us 
welcome !” 

“I perceive that you have,” replied Violet, unable to 
repress her laughter at the ludicrous contrast between 
Eliza’s misery and the savant’s determined, not to say dia- 
bolical, cheerfulness. 

“ Don’t laugh — don’t !” moaned Miss Bronson, sinking 
into a chair. “ Oh ! oh ! the ceiling fell and ruined every- 
thing ! A wreck — a mere wreck ! I said I’d better escape 
with my life, and so live to tell you ; and I brought the 
professor — most improper — but not a time to stop for cere- 
mony ! And, oh ! I did all I could — I’d have held it up 
with broomsticks till I was crushed ; but how could I sup- 
port a whole house ? And I warned you not to buy it — 
you must admit that ! I begged and prayed you not to buy 
it ! Two lone ladies in a corrupt foreign land ! So do not 
blame me ; oh ! that I cannot bear ! it is too much — too 
much !” 

“ What does she mean, professor ?” demanded Violet. 

“All fallen in — all !” cried Eliza. “Yes, tell her, pro- 
fessor ; break it as gently as you can. Be prepared, Violet 
— be prepared. And I begged you not to buy it, ; I prayed 
you to flee from the wickedness of this Papistical country !” 

She sobbed so loud that it was impossible for the pro- 
fessor to utter a syllable, but he reassured Miss Cameron 
by a glance which in a less distinguished personage might 
almost have been considered a wink. 

“ Try not to sob so loud, Eliza,” said Violet ; “ you will 
rouse the whole household : besides, you don’t give the 
professor an opportunity to tell me what is the matter.” 

“ Speak, professor, speak !” ordered Eliza, “ when I 
have begged you, implored you to tell the tale ! Oh, was 
there ever a man so perverse ?” and her sudden irritation 
against the savant helped to compose her slightly. 

“ Miss Bronson has been somewhat agitated,” the i^ro- 
fessor began. 

“ Somewhat ! ” repeated Eliza, in a strangled scream. 

“ In fact, she had a little fright ” 

“ A little fright ! Ob, if that is the way you state mat- 


SEE ACCUSED HEIISELF. 


131 


ters, pray let me break the awful news myself,” said Eliza, 
putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and then removing it 
to bestow a witliering glare upon the sage. ‘‘ I thought — 
yes, I own it, I thought, professor, that at such a moment 
your much-vaunted friendship for Miss Cameron would 
have asserted itself ! I fondly believed that you would 
employ such mental resources as you could command to 
break gently to her the catastrophe !” Then her dignity 
failed, and she began to wring her hands, crying : Oh, 

Violet, Violet ! the whole house may have fallen in by now 
— everything ruined ! and I begged and besought ” 

‘‘Yes, I know you did,” interrupted Violet. “Come, 
whatever the accident — and I suppose it must be something 
terrible — at least you are alive and unhurt. And here is 
the professor safe too, and ready to unfold the tale, if you 
W’ill allow him.” 

“ Oh, the professor !” exclaimed Eliza, in high scorn ; 
“ he is safe enough, and as useless as only a man can be. 
Standing there, dumb and deaf, when he came on purpose 
to help me impart the news ; though a person who pretends 
to have a dozen Oriental languages at his command might, 
one would think, find some tongue in which to reveal the 
tidings !” 

“If I had a pencil I would attempt to make it clear in 
hieroglyphics on the door-post,” said the professor. 

“ And that is the way he has treated me during the whole 
drive !” cried Eliza, spreading wide her hands with a ges- 
ture of despair. “I could not have believed — no, unless 
he had proved it himself — I could not have believed that 
any human being would behave as he has done to a friend 
— a lady !” 

“Heavens, professor, what do I hear?” said Violet. 

“I did my best to soothe her,” replied the professor, 
every feature of his grim face lighted with ecstatic enjoy- 
ment. “ Why, she was quite composed, and laughed 
heartily during our drive. It is only seeing you that has 
unnerved her.” 

Eliza gave him another disdainful glance, and turned 
away her head, rising slowly and with majesty. 

“Violet,” she said, “if you will permit, I shall go up 
to your room and repose myself for a little. Now that 
you know tlie worst — now that X have told you what has 
happened-— I feel the effects of my late terror. It only re- 


133 


SEE ACCUSED HERSELF, 


mains for me to thank Professor Schmidt for the great as- 
sistance he has given in this moment of need, and to assure 
him that I heartily regret having burdened his scientific 
mind with our troubles.” 

She swept down the corridor towards the stairs, looked 
back over her shoulder to say : 

“ You have your usual rooms, I suppose, Violet ?” 

‘‘ Yes, my dear,” replied Violet, mildly, and Eliza dis- 
appeared. 

The professor rubbed his hands and chuckled. 

“ Friiiilein,” said he, ‘‘ I have seen her under the influ- 
ence of many varying emotions, but I don’t think she ever 
gave us anything so delicious as this ! She really has sur- 
passed herself ! I wish — oh, I wish I could have embalmed 
her with that expression on her face !” 

‘‘Now tell me what foundation there was for her dis- 
tress ?” asked Violet. “ I suppose the house is not quite 
in ruins ?” 

“ A bit of the ceiling fell in one of the anterooms,” the 
professor explained. “ I had gone to the house to beg our 
beloved Eliza to send you a little parcel (only some pamph- 
lets you wanted), and then I thought I might as well go up 
stairs and write you a note. She dashed out just as I 
reached the landing, with half a dozen women after her as 
frightened as herself ; it was even better than the poison- 
ing scene, I assure you.” 

“Poor Eliza, to have to depend upon you for sym- 
pathy !” laughed Violet. 

“ Nobody could have been more sympathizing than I 
was,” said the professor. “She finally decided to drive 
over here and tell you the fatal tidings, and as 1 had noth- 
ing to do, I thought I would accompany her and see you 
all. Everybody is well, I hope? Have you taken good 
care of my Laurence ?” 

“ Here he comes with the marchese, so he can speak for 
himself,” Violet said, as Aylmer and his host appeared 
from the garden. She exchanged greetings with the two 
gentlemen, then went away to find Miss Bronson, not sorry 
to escape the eager, questioning looks which Aylmer’s eyes 
cast upon her. 

She would return home ; that determination seized her 
while mounting the stairs. The accident which Eliza had 
come to report would serve as an excuse, and she wanted 


SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 


133 


to get away. Just now, to remain under the same roof 
with Aylmer would give him so many opportunities of re- 
newing the conversation of the previous night that she 
should be at a disadvantage. After a few days of not see- 
ing her, he would have had leisure to attain to a more sen- 
sible mood, be ready to listen to her wise arguments, and 
not trouble the course of their friendship by any further 
approaches to romantic folly. 

She found Eliza established in an easy-chair in her 
boudoir, drinking sal volatile and water, and relating the 
accident to Clarice, who listened with well-simulated 
interest. 

‘‘ So a bit of the ceiling fell in the antechamber,” said 
Violet, as the maid retired. Quite a special interposition 
of Providence. I always hated those frescoes.” 

“ Really, Violet,” observed Miss Bronson, looking hor- 
rified, “it is positively wicked to speak in that light 
way ” 

“But since no harm was done !” 

“ Such a state as the room is in ! And we might all 
have been killed — every soul in the house, and half the 
people we know into the bargain !” cried Eliza. “ And 
you to speak so carelessly instead of being grateful — yes, 
prayerful, over our escape !” 

“I’ll be as grateful as you like, my dear ; but I can’t 
help rejoicing at the opportunity for changing those fres- 
coes. You are safe, and so is the rest of the household — 
our friends are, too — no damage done that I can discover.” 

“ It is downright cruel of you to speak like that, when 
you know how fond I was of that dear little rococo dog ; 
and he never ought to have stood on the anteroom table, 
and now he is smashed to atoms, and nothing left but the 
end of his beautiful little red tail with a black spot on the 
tip !” 

“My dear, he was only china ! We’ll stop at Janetti’s 
this very day, and I’ll buy you a more picturesquely ugly 
one even than he. I saw a charming beast there — vjivid 
green — mediaBval — with no tail at all, but he had two heads 
to make up for the lack ! So don’t be downcast, Eliza.” 

“ It is your levity that troubles me,” said Eliza ; “ if I 
could only teach you to see that life is a serious matter — 
that we are creatures of an hour ; here perhaps to-day, 


134 


SHE ACCUSED HEjRSELF. 


and to-raorrow — ah, where ? Who shall say — gone like 
sparks ” 

Or your little blue dog with a red tail !” interrupted 
Violet. 

‘‘Heedless, unreflecting girl !” sighed Eliza. 

“ Signorina !” muttered Violet, thinking of the previous 
evening, and feeling so near mingled tears and laughter, 
that she felt herself as absurd as Eliza. “If I don’t take 
care we shall be two hysterical old maids together !” 

“ What did you say* Violet ?” 

“I say that I am going back to town with you. I 
have an excuse, and, to own the truth, I am not sorry to get 
away.” 

“Why, nothing unpleasant has happened, I hope? 
Nina hasn’t done anything to annoy you ?” 

“ What an idea ! And the marchese ” 

“ Oh !” broke in Eliza, lifting her hands and eyes 
towards heaven, and beginning to shiver, “ Oh, after that 
nothing will ever surprise me ! But you don’t mean it. 
He wouldn’t — he hasn’t ” 

“Hasn’t what, in the name of goodness?” 

“ Yet why need I be surprised ? Those Italians — one is 
never safe ! But, for Nina’s sake — poor Nina ! — oh ! I hope 
he hasn’t ” . 

“What do you mean?” cried Violet. “Speak out. 
You quite make one’s flesh creep.” 

“ Creep ! yes indeed ! The wickedness of these Floren- 
tines is enough ! I need not wonder ; and yet — and yet— 
oh, try to think you were mistaken ! He hasn’t ” 

“ Yes !” shouted Violet in desperation. “ Now are you 
satisfied ? If so, try to become sane and talk of something 
else.” 

“ Oh !” ejaculated Eliza anew, “ I knew he would, sooner 
or later — I expected it — I warned you !” she added, with 
the resignation of a person who, after enduring suspense 
for months, feels a certain sensation of relief when the blow 
falls. “ Those dreadful Italians — all alike ! Poor Nina — 
his wretched wife ! My dear. I’ll break it to her if you 
think she ought to be told. I will not shrink from duty, 
however painful. I will not desert you, my poor darling !” 

“ Well, that’s kind of you, at all events.” 

“And he has-— he has ! I thought you looked pale — no 
wonder ! You are' right to leave the house. Oh, if you 


SHE ACCUSED HERSELF. 


135 


had only gone before ! — it is too late now to prevent what 
has happened ” 

‘‘ Suppose you tell me what that is ?” asked Violet. 

‘‘You said the marchese had been making love to you ! 
If you told it as a jest, then I can only say I think it very 
unbecoming and indelicate to joke upon such matters !” 
cried Eliza, angrily, as Violet’s peals of laughter warned 
her that she had misunderstood the state of the case. 

“ Poor Carlo, I am sure he would think it a great hard- 
ship,” Violet said, as soon as she could speak. “Now, 
Eliza, rein in your vestal imagination for the rest of tlm 
day ; it really is too brilliant for anybody but a sensational 
novel-writer to own.” 

“I think you are very unkind, Violet. I know you 
don’t mean to be, but you always forget how sensitive I 
am ! You are so heedless, so unreflecting, so ” 

“ Young !” added Violet, with mocking emphasis. 
“ Don’t leave out that item in the count ! And now let us 
go down to breakfast. Mind you stand by me, for Nina 
will be outrageous and try to keep me ; but I must go — I 
really must ; I do so want to get home !” 

“ Something has happened, I am sure of it !” cried the 
spinster. 

“ Something will if you don’t stop teasing me,” returned 
Violet, laughing again. “ I shall certainly do you a mis- 
chief, my blessed Eliza, before my ill-spent existence comes 
to an end — I know I shall ; I feel it looming in the future, 
as the poets say.” 

Then Eliza laughed too, and felt greatly relieved — she 
always did after having made a scene ; and luckily, by al- 
lowing her that privilege now and then, during the rest of 
the time she managed to conduct herself with very toler- 
able equanimity, and was not, in reality, taking the year 
together, more trouble or annoyance to Miss Cameron than 
any human creature must be who is flung on one’s hands 
the twelve months in and out, even though that segment of 
humanity had a genius equal to Michael Angelo’s, or^a face 
as pretty as Madame le Brim’s portrait, painted by her own 
partial brush. 

Violet expected the marchesa to be horridly indignant 
over her departure — perhaps uncomfortably curious as to 
its cause ; but nothing ever happens as one anticipates. 


136 


TEE ABABIC LESSONS. 


Carlo had brought news that the workmen aad at last 
left Casa Magnoletti free. 

‘‘ So we shall flit ourselves immediately,” Nina said ; 
‘‘ and therefore I forgive your desertion, Violet.” 

Going to-day, Miss Cameron !” cried Aylmer, dole- 
fully. 

“ Going !” repeated the professor, saving her the trouble 
of reply, “ and so are you, young idler ! You are to get to 
work ; I have plenty cut and dried, and came on )»arpose 
to carry you back to it.” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE AEABIO LESSONS. 

ISS CAMERON returned home, and amid the 
plenitude of sage resolves which she indulged 
at this period, determined that she would no 
longer consume so many hours in idle visits and 
amusement. 

On the way to town she admitted the professor into her 
confidence, and consulted him upon the feasibility of study- 
ing Arabic as an employnaent which could not come under 
the head of frivolous recreation. He encouraged the idea 
because he was to be her teacher, though he knew as well 
as she that the whim would only prove a means for wasting 
his time and hers ; but with the usual determined blindness 
of humanity, he no more admitted the fact to himself than 
Violet allowed her motives and feelings to stare her in the 
face without some vail of pretense flung across their 
features. 

The professor grew enthusiastic over her plan, and 
endeavored to discover numerous benefits certain to accrue 
therefrom. He labored so hard and failed so ignorain- 
iously, that Violet at last burst out laughing, and the pro- 
fessor laughed as heartily as she, while Eliza Bronson 
looked severe disapproval of their levity. 

“ I can see nothing ludicrous in the project of serious 



THE ARABIC LESSOR'S. 


137 


stud}"/’ she said ; and I do not know, Violet, whether 1 
am most surprised at you or the professor.” 

I am as serious as the grave,” began Violet, but Eliza 
lifted her hands to enjoin silence. 

“ Do not be profane/’ she cried with a shudder ; do 
not !” 

The professor bounced in delight — no other word can 
serve, savant though he was — he bounced, and Violet nodded 
her head in responsive enjoyment, while Eliza stared coldly 
upon them, and presently observed with line disdain : 

“As you are not Chinese mandarins strung on wires, 
but reasonable, rational human beings ” 

“ Not I, at least,” interrupted Violet. 

“ With immortal souls,” pursued Eliza, impressively. 

“ Not proven !” broke in the professor. “We are sim- 
ply, my dear, dearest Miss Bronson, huge masses or 
agglomerations of molecules.” 

“ Violet, stop the carriage !” shrieked Eliza. “ I’ll walk 
— I’ll walk every step of the way from here to the city 
gates, rather than be exposed to listen to such horrible 
theories ! After the escape we have had — when the very 
ceiling fell as a warning, to hear him talk like this !” 

“ Ach, mein Gott f now she accuses me and my heresies 
of causing that disaster,” exclaimed the professor, with a 
hypocritical attempt at a groan. 

“ Sir,” said Eliza, “ I accuse you of nothing — I leave 
that to your conscience ” 

“No well-organized animal has one,” interposed the 
professor. 

“ And your Maker !” added Eliza, in a sepulchral 
whisper. “ Beware, Doctor Schmidt, beware !” 

“ Potztausend! ” gasped the professor. 

“ Spare me the coarse horror of those Teutonic oaths,” 
said Eliza, with majesty. “ For many years an instructress 
of the young — a position which I trust I held with credit 
to myself, with good effect upon others ” 

“ I am sure of it,” cut in the professor. 

“ I became (if you will hear me out),” pursued Eliza — 
“ I became too conversant with the harsh intricacies of 
your native tongue, not to comprehend those expressions 
which, alas ! are only too redundant in your language — too 
ordinarily on the lips of men who ought, from their talents 
and position, to be models ” 


138 


THE ARABIC LESSONS. 


Sapperment /” faltered the professor, shrinking into a 
corner of the carriage. 

‘‘ Like you,” continued Eliza, following up her advan- 
tage. 

Then, if I am a model, that enough.” 

As you ought to be,” cried Eliza, making the sentence 
all capitals by her energy. 

‘‘ And is not,” said Violet ; so, my dear, the professor 
and I will return to Arabia, and settle about the hours for 
our wanderings there.” 

Eliza pulled her vail over her face, leaned back in her 
seat, and withdrew her attention from all mundane matters 
and sinful triflers, sporting recklessly on the verge of the 
abyss, which was the good -spinster’s favorite appellation 
for the mystery-shrouded existence beyond this earthly 
sphere. 

The first decisive step Miss Cameron took, in accordance 
^vith her resolution to waste less time, was to deny her- 
self to Giulia da Rimini. 

‘‘ She is at home, and he is with her !” thought the 
Sicilian. Only wait ! I will punish her for her insolence 
before three months go by — only wait !” 

The flash in her black eyes so startled her footman, as 
he stood at the carriage-door awaiting further orders, that 
he afterwards told the coachman he would rather break 
stones on the highway in a galley-slave’s dress than call 
himself Duca da Rimini, so long as that fiery^orbed dame 
lived to bear the title of duchess, though Alps and Apen- 
nines and all the other mountain-ranges of Europe might 
tower between him and her. 

Violet insisted upon commencing her Arabic studies 
without delay, but, to her astonishment, when the professor 
appeared on the appointed morning, he came accompanied 
by a second pupil — no less a person than Mr. Laurence 
Aylmer. 

“I had already promised to give this ignorant fellow 
some lessons. I can’t afford to waste time over two sepa- 
rate scholars — you must just stumble on together,” the 
])rofessor explained, with an easy assurance which quite 
took Violet’s breath away — with such dogged determina- 
tion, too, in face and voice, that in any case she could 
hardly have ventured to question his dictum. 

‘‘ i expect speedily to grow so Oriental that I shall talk 


THE ABABIG LESSONS, 


139 


in hexameters, or whatever may be the Eastern equivalent 
for that unpleasant form of verse,” said Laurence, so far 
from making any excuse for the liberty the professor had 
taken in presenting him, that he seemed to Violet triumph- 
ant ; as if he had managed to thwart her in some way, and, 
for the life of her she could not help coloring under his 
glance, though she felt vexed with him and herself there- 
for. 

hope Mr. Aylmer is willing to begin with first prin- 
ciples,” said she, opening at random the book nearest 
to her hand. 

At the very alphabet, and to work his way up step by 
step,” replied Laurence, with an odd ring in his voice. 

This time she would not so much as look towards him ; 
she had no desire to see the significance of his speech 
accentuated by the light of those dangerous eyes. 

The professor glanced at each in turn from under his 
shaggy brows. 

“ Humph !” said he. One strange language at a time. 
I am here to teach you Arabic — don’t exercise your wits 
before me in a tongue that I cannot understand.” 

After this speech a silence came upon his two pupils, 
and he took advantage of it to expound his peculiar theories 
as to the way in which Oriental languages should be stud- 
ied ; proved conclusively that anybody who could not ac- 
quire them with great facility, in a very brief space of time, 
by pursuing his original method, must be a dolt ; and 
wound up by informing the pair that he did not expect 
either to do him or his system any credit, though it would 
undoubtedly be the fault of their powers of application, and 
not of their brains. 

Then, without rhyme or reason, he glared anew at the 
pair ; then he ejaculated, in a, growl like that of a hungry 
lion : 

“ SappermentP^ and neither of his scholars asked him 
what he meant, or what had caused the unseemly outburst. 
Violet had her eyes fixed on the trimmings of her gown, as 
if counting the threads in the fringe ; and Aylmer w^as 
finding difficulty in settling his arm-chair at a proper angle 
as to the table, and the professor glared in vain. 

“ So !” said he, and flung open a volume with a bang. 
“ Begin, you male pupil, because it is a masculine right, 
and it is only a false, unnatural and depraved state of soci- 


140 


THE ARABIC LESS0H3. 


ety which has given rise to the habit of offering precedence, 
out of a mawkish sentimentality styled courtesy, to the 
female animal. Begin, I say !” 

And his pupil meekly obeyed. 

‘‘ Upon my word,” chuckled the professor, when the 
lesson was finished, I take great credit for my power of 
discipline, and I must say you certainly seem inclined to 
prove yourselves prize scholars in point of obedience.” 

And this time Violet, feeling Aylmer’s eyes upon her, 
did not hesitate to glance towards him and to return his 
smile, which thereupon grew so joyous that her trouble- 
some conscience immediately began to reproach her for 
having already failed in the letter as well as spirit of the 
bond she had signed and sealed with Wisdom, leaving the 
regulation of her conduct entirely in the guidance of that 
goddess. 

About a fortnight later, Violet received a letter from 
America announcing Mrs. Danvers’s death — news for which 
previous epistles had pi*epared her. The date of Mary’s 
sailing was not fixed. A friend in New York, with whom 
she was now stopping, would make the voyage with her, so 
her cousin would have no reason for anxiety, but at present 
Mrs. Forrester found it impossible to name the day for 
starting. 

The weeks went by ; autumn waned ; December came, 
but the weather retained its amiability, and there was not 
even a su^s^estion of ice or Tramontana in the air. 

It seemed to Violet that she lived more quickly during 
this period than in her whole previous life — lived so much 
and so far, that often she had to count the weeks day by 
day in order to satisfy herself that they were so few : yet 
even after doing this and being numerically convinced, the 
sense of time — of a great length of time having passed 
since her return to Florence — remained as strong as ever. 
Pleasant, pleasant weeks, save when now and then she 
roused up to fear that she regarded life less practically than 
she ought, but finding always excuses wherewith to con- 
tent reason, with whom she still regarded herself as on the 
most intimate terms. 

The Arabic studies speedily sank into a farce, whose 
name neither professor nor scholars had the assurance to ^ 
mention, though the lessons continued, and formed an ex- 
cuse for many delightful hours. Often the teacher would 


THE AEABIG LESSONS. 


141 


fail to appear, or would come very late, giving as a plea 
that he had been occupied and forgot. But Miss Cameron’s 
fellow-pupil never forgot ; he was always punctual to the 
moment, and Eliza Bronson, who, with her habit of taking 
things seriously, believed in the lessons and several times 
presented herself as a spectator, was so edified by the dili- 
gence with which during her visits Mr. Aylmer studied the 
big books with their mysterious characters, that she felt 
confident of his rapid progress, and convulsed the professor 
by declaring that she had known from the first he would 
possess great capabilities for the language. 

By the shape of his head ?” suggested the savant. 

No,” said Eliza; “ I have relinquished phrenology as 
a failure, so have all thinking people. I am surprised you 
should betray any faith therein, professor — you, who have 
so little to spare.” 

‘‘ For that reason I cultivate it whenever I can,” said 
the professor. 

“By the shape of his nose,” pursued Eliza, regardless of 
the savant’s mild attempt at exultation. “I tried to get 
you to read that interesting pamphlet in regard to the ex- 
pression of noses, but you would not. Now, Mr. Aylmer’s 
nose is as purely Arabian as if he were an Arab, and so ” 

“Is a second-hand clothes-dealing Jew’s,” added the 
cruel professor. 

He had great difficulty to make his peace with Miss 
Bronson after this offensive speech ; any remark which 
militated against Mr. Aylmer’s superhuman excellence, 
physical, mental and moral, being a positive crime in her 
eyes 

It would be useless to deny that learning Yiolet Cam- 
eron’s age had given Laurence Aylmer a certain shock : 
no man could discover that he loved a woman so much his 
senior and not feel the situation an anomaly. 

“ Why, when I was forty she would be almost fifty ; a 
man is young still at forty. Marrying a person older than 
himself would seem like choosing a guardian instead of a 
wife !” 

So his thoughts ran on several occasions, but were 
always speedily checked by the reminder that he had no 
reason to suppose Miss Cameron would ever dream of wed- 
ding him. In his penitence he said bitter things against 
his own conceit, unjustly too, for he was far from that com- 


142 


THE ABABIG LESSONS. 


monest form of masculine vanity — the belief that every 
woman who smiled at him must be his incurable victim, 
and that he needed only to mention marriage to the Venus 
di Medici to transform her at once to flesh and blood, and 
cause her to descend from her pedestal as meek and obe- 
dient as an odalisque gratefully stooping to pick up her 
sultan’s pock et-h an d kerch ief . 

Indeed, those reminders of her age speedily faded ; the 
thing simply seemed impossible in the presence of her 
fresh loveliness. He perceived, too, that in feeling she was 
as youthful as in her face ; younger far than he, for his 
somewhat morbid, reserved temperament had given him 
opinions and habits of thought more like those of a person 
who had passed the meridian of life than of one still so 
distant from that era. 

Day by day his love for Violet grew the ruling power 
in his soul, and he knew that there had come to him an 
affection which must be as lasting as existence itself. 

He loved her, and chafed restlessly under the restraints 
which she managed to put upon their intercourse. She 
treated him like a valued friend both in public and private, 
but frequently as he saw her alone, she contrived, with a 
tact few even of her sex could have shown, to keep their 
conversation aloof from dangerous subjects, to prevent 
any avowal in words. 

His eyes told his story plainly enough, however — those 
beautiful eyes, whose passionate utterances made her heart 
thrill tumultuously — whose light haunted her in lonely 
hours, often weakening her wise resolves till she was ready 
to believe she wronged him in calling his love a mere 
fancy, making her weep sometimes over her lost youth, and 
causing her to repeat that bitter complaint : 

“ Everything comes too late ! Life is cruel to me — very 
cruel !” 


ANmUNGEiy^^^ MISS DANVEBS, 


143 


CHAPTER XV. 

AKI^’OUlSrCED— MISS DANVERS.’’ 

HE last rays of the setting sun brightened the 
room where Violet Cameron sat idle and medi- 
tative after along morning given up to visitors. 

Nobody else was likely to appear at this 
hour. Miss Bronson had gone to her own 
apartments, believing she told the truth when she an- 
nounced her intention of reading a sermon by way of a 
little improving occupation, so as not to feel that mere 
mundane matters had wholly engrossed her day. Jn reality, 
she went to enjoy a short nap, but the tortures of the In- 
quisition could not have forced her to admit even mentally 
that she was capable of giving way to such a weakness of 
the flesh, wasting any of the precious spare moments which 
ought to be devoted to “ improving the time” — a phrase 
often on her lips. 

So Violet, left to solitude, yielded without scruple to 
the luxurious indolence which crept over her, and let her 
fancies wander whither they would, unconscious that in 
these days she indulged herself more and more in the vis- 
ionary habit which only a few weeks previous she had 
assured reason she was determined to relinquish. Had she 
been roused suddenly she could not have told the subject 
of her reverie. A thousand vague thoughts flitted like 
strains of music through her soul ; hosts of events con- 
nected with the past autumn, unimportant yet strangely 
sweet, wove themselves like soft rhymes into the melody, 
and not a measure but held some reference to the friend 
linked so closely with all the pleasant recollections of this 
season — her friend Laurence, as she called him always in 
her reflections — the very title a safeguard against any im- 
portunate warning from conscience or common-sense. 

Antonio abruptly flung Aylmer’s name across the idle 
sweetness of her reverie. It so often happened that he ap- 
peared at similar junctures that occasionally Violet was 
almost startled by the coincidence — only almost, for even 
if one were unpractical enough to admit the idea that some 



144 


ANNOUNGED--^^ MISS DANVEBS, 


subtle magnetism of thought brought the coincidence about, 
it would only be a proof of the sympathy which must exist 
between two minds in order to render friendship perfect, 
and that this their intercourse was, and was to remain, 
Violet had so thoroughly impressed upon her soul that very 
rarely did any troublesome doubt intrude. 

And he entered now, eager and glad, through all con- 
ventional calm of manner ; she glad too — right and fitting 
surely on his part and hers, since he was her friend — her 
friend Laurence. 

Is it past all decent hours for a morning visit ?” he 
asked, as he sat down opposite her, after paying the first 
salutations. 

^‘Entirely! Well-regulated people are beginning to 
think of their dinners.” 

^ “ But I am not well regulated.” 

‘‘It is fortunate Miss Bronson does not hear. You 
would risk your lofty place in her esteem by such a humili- 
ating confession.” 

“ Well, then, I forgot it was so late. Would that excuse 
satisfy her ?” 

“ I am afraid not ; it is so palpably an after-thought 
that even my credulous Eliza would not be deceived.” 

“ Then it is better to take refuge in trutn,” said he. “I 
waited on purpose till I was certain everybody would be 
gone. One never gets a chance to speak to you when you 
have a crowd of people about.” 

“ What a shocking accusation ! A good hostess can 
make each of her guests, no matter how many she may 
have, feel himself especially noticed.” 

“ I fear I am dull to-day — not equal to social require- 
ments,” said he. 

“ The idea af paying visits in such a mood ! I expect 
people to amuse me.” 

“ You don’t look in a humor for it ; I saw that as I 
came in.” 

“Pray how did I look ?” 

“ Like a Sybil — like some priestess of Apollo ” 

“ Oh, worse and worse ! Miss Bronson would give you 
up in despair ! Even moderate exaggeration is distasteful 
to her — but this ! Besides, she considers any reference to 
the heathens or their deities highly indecorous, not to say 
wicked.” • 


ANNOUNGED--^^^ MISS DANTEES:^ 


145 


‘^How lucky she is absent! In ray present state of 
mind I should be certain to ruin rnyself hopelessly.” he 
answered ; but the smile on his lips belied diis regret so 
expressively, and the light in his eyes grew so dangerous, 
that Violet wished the spinster were there. She perceived 
that he was in one of the moods which would recur in spite 
of her prudence, when he became difficult to manage — 
moods which disturbed temporarily the conviction she in- 
sisted upon considering settled, that no vagrant fancies 
were to trouble the even tenor of their friendship. 

‘‘Ah, you admitted you felt dull,” said Violet, catching 
quickly at any advantage ; “I think Eliza would not con- 
demn that severely. She has great patience with dull 
books, why not dull people ?” 

“You mean to impress ray unlucky choice of a word on 
me — three times in that one sentence !” 

“ Good gracious ! do you wish to insinuate that I am 
dull too ?” 

“Even ray blankest stupidity could not carry me to 
such a point. Sometimes I wish you were ; you would not 
be so quick to flay and scarify every little truth that utters 
itself in spite of me.” 

“ What a quantity of long phrases ! And it is not the 
truth I find fault with — scarify, as you poetically term it — 
only that bad habit you will not cure of paying exaggerated 
compliments. I have told you over and over that such 
nonsense between friends was unnecessary.” 

“ I didn’t think you would call speaking from my heart 
nonsense,” said he, rushing on forbidden ground at once — 
assuming, too, the purely masculine privilege in such an 
encounter, of seeming hurt by her levity or indifference ; 
let a woman feel as deeply as she may, her sense of woman- 
ly dignity must prevent her employing that weapon. 
“Say a liberty — an impertinence, if you will — but not 
nonsense.” 

“We won’t quarrel over mere words,” returned Violet, 
pleasantly, with the comfortable assurance of being mis- 
tress of herself and the situation. 

“Excuse me, but it is a question of feelings, not 
words 1” cried he, with another dangerous flash from his 
eyes, which shook her confidence as to the ease with which 
she should keep the ice of conventionalities unbroken — 
nay, ^^orse still, brought a swift fear that she had too 
7 


146 


ANFOUNCED--^^ MISS DANVERS. 


hastily exulted at her victory over the image in the mir* 
ror. Only listen — only let me explain !’^ 

Compliments do not need explanation,” returned she, 
holding fast desperately to that signification for his utter- 
ances. “ A woman who has seen as many seasons as I, and 
heard as much persiflage talked, does not hold a man au 
pied de la lettre for every poetical speech in which he may 
think gallantry compels him to indulge.” 

“ That is unkind !” said he. 

“ Come, ni not acknowledge it ! If you had said un- 
civil, I might have owned you were right, hut unkindness 
implies an intention to wound. I am sure I don’t wish to 
punish your bad habit of paying compliments so severely.” 

‘‘ Compliments ! How you insist on using that word, 
when you know it is utterly misplaced ; unwise, too, con- 
sidering your stand-point.” 

‘‘ How unwise ?” she asked, and realized that she had 
given him an advantage, but the question was uttered. 

“ Because such very determined affecting to believe 
everything I say persiflage, looks almost as if you were 
afraid of recognizing my earnestness, and you know ” 

She knew what he was going to say ; another instant, 
and he would hurry on in passionate speech, which would 
effectually destroy the guise of friendship to which she 
had, with so much trouble, confined their relations. She 
knew it ; the delicious utterances thrilled her as if already 
pronounced, but prevent their expression she must. 

“ You are right,” she said ; ‘‘ I am afraid !” 

‘‘Violet !” he exclaimed, speaking her name for the first 
time — a passionate joy breaking out in face and voice. 
He made a quick movement to seize her-hands, which were 
resting upon the table before her. She did not remove 
them out of his reach, but she clasped them hard together 
till they looked cold and firm in the shadowy room as two 
sculptured hands, while something in her eyes, as she 
looked full at him, prevented his carrying out his inten- 
tion, though again her name broke from his lips : “ Violet !” 

“ Let me speak,” she said, outwardly calm, in spite of 
her agitation. “ Yes, I am afraid — I will tell you why. I 
do not wish to lose my friend — I do not wish to have our 
pleasant intimacy (so very pleasant to me) disturbed ; and 
this must happen if he will not remember that any ap- 
proach to flirtation on the part of a woman of my age 


ANFOUNGED—^^ MISS DANVERS:^ 


147 


would be as unworthy her, as any brief fancy on his for a 
person years older than himself would be misplaced and 
unnatural.” 

She spoke the words very slowly, very composedly ; 
but oh, they hurt, they hurt, in spite of her strength and 
courage ! 

“ Oh, all that ” 

‘‘ Is truth and common-sense,” she interrupted smiling. 
“ So now let us be sensible, my friend — Laurence.” 

And she spoke his name too for the first time. If a 
voice from the portals of heaven had called bidding him 
enter, the tones could not have sounded more entrancing to 
his ear. Every effort she made to break his chains only 
riveted them closer. 

So we will get back to the regions of common-sense 
and stay there,” she continued before he could speak, smil- 
ing at him still, even while her heart shivered and ached as 
if she were pressing a weight of ice down upon it. “ Re- 
member, if you talk in a ^ way to make me feel silly, I shall 
think it is because I have been trying to affect the graces 
of a young girl, and so be obliged to despise myself at 
almost thirty-four ; recollect, Laurence, almost thirty- 
four !” 

He dared not continue — he knew that he should 
receive his dismissal then and there if he did ; yet to let 
himself be so effectually checked was not only painful, but 
irritating. 

“ You are hard — hard !” he exclaimed, wisely taking 
refuge in an affectation of petulance which would afford 
her an opportunity to pretend to think it only his man’s 
vanity she had wounded. I wish I were ill again — I wish 
I had never got well !” 

Upon my word !” 

“ I do ! You were kind then. Ah, I dare say you have 
forgotten ; but I remember everything — the slightest detail 
— even to that day when you laid the flowers on my 
}>illow.” 

How stupid she had been not to tell him the truth long 
before ! Yet perhaps it was fortunate after all that she 
had not — it would come with more force now. 

“ I have never forgiven the professor for robbing me,’* 
he added. 


148 


FBOM AMERICA. 


You could easily have had more from the same quar^ 
ter,” said she, laughing. 

‘‘ Why, you have never so much as given me a iMse-bud 
since !” retorted he. 

‘‘ Oh, I had nothing to do with the matter ! You must 
thank the Duchess da Rimini ! It was she left the jessa- 
mines — romance is not my forte.” 

What do you mean ?” 

Just wliat I say — romance is not ” 

‘‘ No — no ! You did not put the flowers there ?” 

“ Most certainly not ! I hope I am free from prudery, 
still nothing but necessity would have induced me to pay 
you visits.” 

And you have let me deceive myself all this time !” 
he cried, with mingled anger and disappointment. 

“ Really, I did not suppose you recollected the poetical 
incident,” said she, laughing again. 

‘‘ Oh, you are hard to me — hard !” he exclaimed, bit- 
terly. 

But before he could add another word the door opened, 
and Antonio’s slow, measured voice announced : 

“ Miss Danvers !” 


CHAPTER XYT. 

FROM AMERICA. 

HE interruption was so unexpected, Violet’s 
thoughts so engrossed by Aylmer’s words and 
her own efforts to keep the conversation upon 
the safe ground of banal compliment, that for 
a second Antonio’s announcement only caused 
her a vague sensation of wonder, and she repeated the 
name in a low tone, almost as if trying to recollect what 
connection her mind had therewith : 

‘‘ Miss Danvers !” 

“ From America,” added Antonio, his varied experience 
enabling him to take in the position at once. He felt as 
guilty as though he had committed a willful sin — more so. 




FROM AMERICA. 


149 


perhaps, for in Antonio’s peculiar creed a stupidity was less 
pardonable than a crime, and he retreated sorely crest- 
fallen, thinking, I deserve to be thrown down stairs ! I 
ought to have remembered, though it is an at-home day, 
there are visitors and visitors, and not have intruded so 
suddenly when mademoiselle was alone with /wm/” 

Miss Cameron and Aylmer had risen simultaneously ; 
she got her wits back in a flash (at the same time becoming 
aware of a very odd expression in Aylmer’s eyes), and saw 
the new-comer hesitating near the door. A young girl 
dressed in deep mourning, with a heavy crape vail, which 
might have befitted a wddow, falling over her face, so that 
she was obliged to push it back, and she did so in an 
annoyed fashion. A pretty girl — prettier than ever in her 
embarrassment, wherewith mingled an attempt at self- 
assertion which might end in anger or cause her to run 
away in a fright if she were not received in a fashion to 
assure her that her visit was welcome. But though all this 
showed so plainly in countenance and attitude, she appeared 
neither bold nor disagreeably missish ; somehow she gave 
the elfect of a child playing at being a woman. 

Violet hurried forward, and the little visitor cried : 

‘‘ Oh, I have come to see my cousin. Miss Cameron, if 
you will please tell her ! I am Mary Danvers — if you don’t 
believe it you can ask Mr. Aylmer ! He can say who I am 
if he chooses, and not some pretender, though he acts as if 
he didn’t remember me ! And — and — my cousin asked me 
to come !” 

She looked inexpressibly tired ; a burst of tears was 
evidently imminent, in spite of her determination. 

Violet reached her side, embraced her cordially, and 
placed her in the nearest chair, saying rapidly : 

‘‘ My dear child, I am delighted to see you ! You took 
me so by surprise that I couldn’t think at all for a second. 
I am so very, very glad you have got here !” 

“ Oh, thank you,” returned the other, in a hurried way, 
rather shrinking from Violet’s caress. “ If you will please 

tell ray cousin — Miss Cameron ” 

“ M}^ dear, I am your cousin !” cried Violet, putting 
both arms about her. “ Welcome, a thousand times !” 

Mary Danvers stared in astonishment — almost incre- 
dulity. • 

“Are you Violet ? — are you really ?” she exclaimed. 


150 


FROM AMERICA, 


‘‘ Why, of course I am ; for whom do you take me ?” 
laughed Miss Cameron, pushing the heavy vail still farthei 
back, » from the eager, wondering face. ‘‘You are tired 
out ” 

“ Oh ! but I needn’t be such a goose !” broke in Mary. 
“And to think of my not knowing you ! I thought you 
would look el — I mean ” She stopped in confusion. 

“ You couldn’t know me by instinct,” said Violet, caress- 
ing her. “ I am so sorry there was no one at the station to 
meet you ; if you had sent me word ” 

“ Oh ! weren’t you expecting me ?” interrupted Mary 
again. “ Didn’t you receive the telegram ?” 

“ No, indeed ; but never mind — you are here !” 

“ Oh, she sent one from Paris — I wouldn’t stop — and 
after all you did not receive it ; and to fall in on you like 
this ! Oh ! I don’t like it !” cried the visitor, and it was 
plain that it required a great effort to keep back a sob. 

“ And who came with you ? Of course you did not 
make the journey alone ?” 

“ I told you she sent a telegram,” rejoined Mary, in that 
injured little voice, and her chin, which she had with much 
difficulty just quieted, began to quiver anew. “ But maybe 
she forgot — she did forget so ; and I ought to have attended 
to it myself : but I had such a dreadful headache. Oh dear, 
it is too bad to have taken you by surprise !” 

“Not of the least consequence — don’t think of it. You 
have come, and that is enough,” said Violet, very sorry for 
her, though unable to repress a feeling that so much con- 
fusion was misplaced, even while she appreciated the girl’s 
efforts to overcome it. “ You are worn out by your jour- 
ney, poor dear, and that makes you nervous.” 

“Yes, that is it,” assented Mary, but Violet saw her 
blue eyes wander towards Aylmer, who stood waiting till 
the first salutations between the cousins were over before 
he came forward to renew his acquaintance with the younger. 

“ Here is some one you know,” said Violet. “ Come 
and speak to her, Mr. Aylmer ; the sight of a familiar face 
will do her good.” 

Was there something peculiar in the manner of both? 
Aylmer, at least, had recovered his usual demeanor by the 
time he reached the ladies. He held out his hand to the 
new-comer, saying : 


FROM AMERICA, 


151 


How do you do, Miss Danvers ? I am very happy to 
meet you again.” 

“Thanks; you are very good,” returned Mary, primly. 
She let him take her hand, but quickly drew it away, and 
said, looking at Violet: “I — I have not seen him since be- 
fore poor papa died.” 

Now she sobbed outright, but controlled herself in a 
moment. 

Violet, anxious to change the current of her thoughts, 
began to speak of her journey. Aylmer joined in about its 
fatigues, and, as soon as an opportunity offered, added : 

“ I will take myself off. Miss Cameron, and give you 
and your cousin an opportunity to make acquaintance. I 
shall come to-morrow, if I may, to hear if she finds herself 
quite rested.” 

“ Yes, pray do. Au rewir^'* said Violet, pleasantly ; 
but she did not offer him her hand, and Aylmer noticed the 
omission. 

“Good-morning, Miss Danvers,” he continued. 

“ Good-morning,” Mary answered, and gave him another 
of her odd glances, at once mutinous and reproachful — like 
a child who feels that it has suffered injustice, and does not 
quite know what form of defense it ought to assume ; is a 
little afraid, too, that its self-assertion will be laughed at. 

Aylmer went his way, divided between a natural mascu- 
line annoyance at the interruption of his interview with 
Miss Cameron and the reflections which the sight of George 
Danvers’s daughter roused in his mind. 

Violet saw her cousin glance after the retiring guest, 
and noticed that odd expression on her face ; but in the poor 
child’s present state, it was impossible to decide whether 
emotion or physical weariness unnerved her. Then, too, 
this arrival in the house of an unknown relative afforded 
reason for a certain excitement. 

“ And who was your compagnonde voyage?'^'* she asked. 

“ Oh, please don’t speak French !” cried Mary, almost 
irritably. “ It makes me homesick ! I’ve studied it, and 
I can read well enough ; but it doesn’t sound a bit the 
same when people talk it. Oh, I don’t mean to be impo- 
lite, you know !” 

“ It is just a silly habit of mixing languages that per- 
sons living on the Continent fall into,” said Violet, rathei 
amused to hear how very apologetic her voice grew. 


FROM AMERICA, 


m 


I should not,” replied Mary ; but she spoke so like a 
naughty, willful child that the words did not sound rude. 

“ And who took care of you on the journey asked 
Violet. 

“ Why, Mrs. Forrester. Oh, you didn’t get the telegram ! 
It is that makes it so awkward, and me sucli a goose ! I 
thought you would know all about it, and be expecting 
me.” 

But I am just as glad to see you, my dear — a pleasant 
surprise is always welcome,” said Violet, feeling ashamed 
because the girl’s behavior rendered a little effort at pa- 
tience necessary. “ Mrs. Forrester ? oh yes — you wrote 
me you were to sail with her. But I did not think you 
could have reached Liverpool yet.” 

“ She changed her mind just after I wrote, and we left 
a week before we intended,” said Mary. I got your dis- 
patch to say you would send to England to meet me — it 
came the day we sailed ; but Mrs. Forrester was coming 
down to Florence, so I did not want to trouble you. I 
might have written from London,” she added, contritely ; 
“ but we were so busy the few days we were there — sight- 
seeing all the time — and she said a telegram would do.” 

‘‘ Of course, my dear — don’t think about it. But where 
is Mrs. Forrester ? why didn’t she come to the house, so 
that I might thank her for taking care of you ?” 

‘‘That was another thing that hurried us,” cried Mary. 
“The day we left London she got a message from her 
sister in Rome, who was very ill ; and I wouldn’t let her 
lose any time : so I changed trains at Pistoja and she went 
on. I knew I could do well enough for that little journey, 
even if I didn’t speak Italian, but ” 

She had got on so easily in these last speeches that 
Violet thought the embarrassment all over, and now the 
child suddenly turned scarlet, her eyes grew so bright they 
looked angry, and then the tears gathered in them again, 
and a fresh sob'broke her voice ; but Mary struggled gal- 
lantly for self-control, and once more conquered. 

“Lean back and rest a little longer ; then we will go to 
your room, and you shall get your wraps off,” Violet said 
kindly. 

“ I am very comfortable, thanks,” answered the small 
personage, sitting upright as a dart, though too pretty and 
slight for the attitude to seem ungraceful. 


FROM AMERICA. 


153 


But you look so tired,” said Violet, for the sake of 
saying something. 

It doesn’t rest me to loll in a chair,” replied Mary, 
still busy subduing her freshly-returned excitement; “I 
like a hard one best.” As she spoke she removed herself 
into a straight-backed mediaeval affair, in which no creature 
of the present ease-loving generation had ever before been 
known to sit. 

This bit of assertion seemed to do Mary good, but she 
was still longing to cry, Violet perceived, and the fact kept 
her from mentally styling her new inmate disagreeable ; 
odd enough, to be sure, but a rather attractive oddity. 

‘^Did you have a good passage — across the Atlantic, I 
mean ? Were you sea-sick ?” Violet asked, 

“ Mrs. Forrester was ; I never suffer,” announced Mary, 
with the air of a veteran sailor. Perhaps Violet’s face ex- 
pressed a certain wonder as to where she gained her experi- 
ence, for the girl added quickly, as if her veracity had 
been called in doubt, “ I went to Florida and back by sea 
when I was a little girl, with papa.” 

Another sob here. Violet caught herself wondering 
how strange it seemed there should be any person to weep 
over George Danvers’s loss ! He had certainly made plenty 
of people shed tears by his misdeeds ; then she felt 
ashamed of such hard-hearted reflections in this poor girl’s 
presence. 

“ You shall have some tea,” she said ; that always 
rests one.” She rang the bell, and Antonio appeared in his 
customary speedy fashion. She gave her order, adding, 
‘‘Everything is ready is Miss Danvers’s rooms ? Have her 
boxes been carried up ?” 

“ Pardon, mademoiselle, none have come ; I was about 
to ask mademoiselle if I should send ” 

“Oh, my baggage — I forgot it !” interrupted Mary, 
springing out of her chair. The recollection of an odious 
adventure which she meant to keep to herself checked fur- 
ther speech. She had hurried through the station, and 
sprung precipitately into the nearest hack, only thinking of 
escape ; and from that moment to this had not remem- 
bered those trunks which had weighed so heavily on her 
mind during the whole journey. And she could offer no 
explanation. Cousin Violet would believe her heedless and 
silly, and conceive a prejudice against her ; but a recital of 
7 * 


154 


FROM AMERICA, 


the facts would afford still stronger grounds for censure. 
Girls had no business to meet with adventures. Mary had 
no creed more firmly fixed than this. Cousin Violet would 
be shocked — decide that she had been ill brought up — per- 
haps condemn her father therefor. A dread of blame fall- 
ing upon the memory of her dead parent was always her 
first fear in these days. She had lived for months in a 
constant state of watchful defense, which would have gone 
far to render a girl less healthy in body and mind either 
hopelessly morbid or downright vixenish. 

And the trunks might be lost — stolen ; not only her 
wardrobe, but every precious relic she possessed, gone in a 
single fell swoop. Did ever such miseries befall another ? 
Why, all the woes possible came upon her at once, big and 
little ! As a crowning stroke to her discomfiture, she had 
said baggage,” and that was an Americanism — she had 
read so in an English book ! And Cousin Violet, who had 
lived so long abroad, would think her uneducated as well 
as silly ! In her troubled bewilderment she could pay no 
attention to some question of her cousin’s, but caught her- 
self muttering, “ JBuggage !” a wild, impossible combina- 
tion of the two words, which made her feel that her brain 
was positively softening. 

But Violet had turned to the man again, without 
noticing her insane ejaculation ; and, oh, she was speaking 
calmly about rooms and arrangements; and. the trunks 
might be stolen — had been already, no doubt ! Mary 
started forward with some confused idea of rushing off in 
search of her property — heard Violet exclaim : 

“ Don’t stir, dear child !” and dropped back into her 
chair, and again her lips muttered that impossible word : 

Buggage !” 

‘‘ What did you say, dear ?” Miss Cameron asked. 

Mary only shook her head ; she was past speech ; so 
completely exhausted by fatigue and varying emotions that 
she did not care what became of the trunks, or herself, or 
anything in the world. 

Just give Antonio the ticket for your boxes,” Violet 
said ; and Mary managed to find her pocket-book and ex- 
tract the paper, but, oh, she was sure she appeared hope- 
lessly idiotic. And she could not explain ; and between 
vexation, weariness, and a shuddering disgust to recall her 
adventure, she turned positively sick and faint. 


FROM AMERICA. 


155 


After Mary had drunk her tea, she felt somewhat re- 
stored ; yet all the while, as Violet sat talking in a kindly 
cheerful fashion, an odd sensation that everything was un- 
real oppressed the newly-arrived visitor. She could hardly 
yet believe this the cousin whom she had pictured as faded 
and elderly, perhaps pretentious and affected, on the 
strength of having been a beauty — this lady, so youthful, 
so lovely, so like Mary’s exalted ideas of what a princess 
or a poetess ought to be ! She found it difficult to accept 
this brilliant creature as a relative in place of the ideal 
which she had formed and elaborated with the positiveness 
of her age — had shrunk from a little, too — and, while glad 
to discover her error, she indulged a certain sense of injury 
thereat. Mary was a model to girls in general for her 
readiness to admit that she had made a mistake or been in 
the wrong, but she had a trick of retaining that injured 
feeling under her penitence as a sop to her dignity. 

“Now I will show you your rooms,” Violet said. 
“ Come this way, dear.” 

For a space Mary quite forgot her troubles and annoy- 
ances in admiration of the charming nook which Violet had 
furnished with such care. 

“ My bedroom is next yours,” she explained, as they 
sat down in the boudoir, “ and Miss Bronson’s apartments 
are next this room, so you will not feel solitary.” 

Mary showed so much pleasure, and expressed her grati- 
fication so prettily, that Violet ventured to hope she had 
got quite at her ease, and that now they could begin to 
make acquaintance. 

“ My house is a rather gay one,” she said presently, d 
propos to some details about her daily life, “but you shall 
not be worried at present.” 

“ Oh, I noticed you wore no mourning,” rejoined Mary, 
and stopped, confused and vexed at having spoken the 
words ; yet the sense of injury came back. 

“ I did for a few weeks,” Violet replied quietly ; “ as 
long as is customary, unless for one’s immediate family. 
You must recollect that I had not seen your father for 
many years.” 

“ Yes — of course — I beg your pardon I Oh, I don’t 
know what ails me ; I say everything wrong ; I never be- 
haved so in my life — and you are so good to me !” cried 
Mary, her features working tremulously. 


156 


GIULIA^S GEEEK 


You arc tired, that is all,” Violet said. Now, my 
dear, I am going away, so that you can lie down and rest 
before dinner ; you will feel better then. Try to sleep, 
and wake up remembering that you are at home !” 

She kissed the girl’s forehead and went out of the 
room. Left to herself, Mary indulged in a hearty fit of 
crying, which did her good. She slept afterwards, and by 
the time she met her cousin and Miss Bronson, had re- 
covered sufficient self-control to behave sensibly, though 
still embarrassed enough to be stiff and precise ; a bearing 
which caused Violet serious doubts as to the probability of 
her proving a satisfactory companion, but which prepos- 
sessed Eliza at once in her favor, stiffness and dignity being 
synonymous terms in the spinster’s mind. 


' CHAPTER XVIL 

GIULIA^S GREEK. 

AVE you seen Giulia’s Greek ?” asked Lady Har- 
court, as she established herself in the coziest 
corner of Nina Magnoletti’s salon. 

It was the little Russian’s reception-day, and 
a knot of peoj)le, Violet Cameron among them, 
was gathered in the room. Her ladyship had just entered, 
and barely gave herself time to exchange salutations with 
her friends before she put her question. 

Has Giulia found a Greek ?” demanded Nina. 

“ ‘ When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of 
war,’ ” quoted Sabakine, w ith mock sententiousness. 

‘‘ I knew you would get off that stale old quotation,” 
cried Lady Harcourt. “ Yes, Nina, she has ; he only ar- 
rived yesterday ! Oh, my dear, there is the most wonder- 
ful history attached ” 

“Already?” broke in Sabakine. 

“Be quiet, and let me tell my news — not a soul of you 
had heard ! How delightful to be first in the field for 
once ! And how do you suppose she came by him ?” 

“ Advertised !” 



GIULIA'S GBEEK. 


157 


Made a compact with the devil !” 

Won him at cards !” This last suggestion was Saba- 
kine’s. 

“ No, no ; nothing so hackneyed and commonplace as 
either of those devices,” said Lady Harcourt. 

And she would have nothing to offer his Satanic 
majesty, since she gave him her soul long since,” Sa- 
bakine added. 

“ Do tell me !” pleaded Nina. “Nobody will ever 
guess.” 

“ Miss Cameron is the only one who does not try her 
powers,” said Lady Harcourt, “ Yankee though she be I 
Yes, I understand,” she continued, as Violet only smiled 
rather disdainfully in response. “Not worth the trouble ! 
My dear, you never will appreciate Giulia, in spite of all 
my efforts to make you.” 

“ Oh yes, I think I do,” returned Violet. 

“ At her value,” added Sabakine, “ which is above 
rubies ! But don’t drive us mad with curiosity. Lady Har- 
court ! Who made the duchess a present of a Greek ?” 

“ Her husband !” 

A chorus of incredulity followed ; Miss Cameron alone 
remained silent and indifferent. 

“ Her husband !” repeated Lady Harcourt, nodding her 
head impressively, and looking slowly around the circle till 
her eyes rested upon Violet. “ Miss Cameron is the only 
polite person among you,” she added ; “ I shall tell my 
story for her special benefit.” 

“ So kind of you,” said Violet, laughing at her mis- 
chievous friend’s efforts to tease her. 

“ One may be less doubting than Thomas, still there are 
limits to one’s credulity,” said Nina. 

“ Lady Harcourt evidently thinks not,” observed Saba- 
kine. 

“Hush, you pair of schismatical Muscovites !” cried her 
ladyship. “ Yes, a gift of marital affection, and a very 
nice-looking one too : who could ever say a harsh word 
against the duke after this ?” 

“ Are we to accept the duchess’s unaided testimony as 
to the quarter from whence the cadeau arrives?” asked 
Sabakine. 

“ Not a bit of it ; he comes under the husband’s seal. I 
saw the proofs,” said Lady Harcourt. 


158 


GIULIA^S OEEEK, 


do tell me!” urged Nina. ‘^It is cruel to play 
with all the better feelings of our natures in this fashion.” 

“My dear, I have to work up gradually to my fine 
effects ; one is not allowed such a marvel to relate every 
day ! Well, then, I drove to Giulia’s to carry ” 

Her ladyship was interrupted by the entrance of Carlo 
and Aylmer. 

“ How' do you do, Mr. Aylmer?” cried Nina. “ Oli, 
don’t speak, either of you I Lady Harcourt had just begun 
to tell us something so interesting.” 

“ I can begin again.” 

“Pray lose no more time ! Giulia has got a Greek — 
her husband sent him — Lady Harcourt went to the house 
and found him. Now, now, please go on, ray dear friend.” 

“ Oh, that story ; have you only just heard thatT'^ cried 
the provoking Carlo. 

“ I have long suspected you of being the most depraved 
of men, and now I am convinced !” retorted her ladyship. 
“You only want to spoil my dramatic effects — you know 
nothing about it !” 

“ And what business have you here on my reception 
morning, I should be glad to learn ?” demanded Nina. 

“ Don’t I know, my lady ?” cried Carlo, holding up a 
letter. “ Nina mia, behold my excuse for this unseemly 
intrusion !” 

“ What is it — let me see !” pleaded Nina, hurrying for- 
ward and playfully trying to snatch the letter ; but he held 
it out of her reach, while allowing her to look at the seal. 
“ The duke’s crest — positively !” 

“ Certainly this is the age of miracles !” said Sabakine. 
“ Da Rimini makes his wife a present of a young Greek. 
Did you say he was young. Lady Harcourt ?” 

“ And handsome, too !” 

“ And selects Carlo, of all people in the world, as his 
confidant,” pursued Sabakine, who was exasperating Aylmer 
by keeping the seat beside Miss Cameron. 

“ Oh, at this rate we shall never get at the facts,” cried 
Nina, sinking back in her chair. “ Lady Harcourt, if you 
have a heart in your bosom, go on with your story.” 

“ And I’ll come in with the Greek chorus,” said Carlo. 

“ I drove to Giulia’s to carry her some of my wonderful 
embrocation — her little girl had hurt her hand,” explained 
her ladyship. 


GIULIA^S GREEK. 


158 


“ Ah well, the poor little thing stands a chance of being 
cured, since she can be treated for nothing,” Sabakine 
whispered audibly. 

Nina menaced him with a paper-knife. 

“ And there sat Giulia and the Greek ! I thought at 
first I must have been let in by accident ; but no ! Giulia 
received me with unbounded enthusiasm, and begged per- 
mission to present Giorgio Dimetri — a great friend of her 
husband’s. He had just brought her a letter ; the duke par- 
ticularl}’^ requested her to do all in her power to make the 
signore’s stay in Florence agreeable. How could she begin 
better than by bringing him to the notice of a person, 
etcetera, etcetera, as myself — spare my modesty ! Then 
we talked ; the fellow is well-mannered enough and cer- 
tainly handsome. I should say a consummate rascal — and 
— well, I don’t know how to explain what I mean. I got 
an idea that Giulia was afraid of him. I did, positively !” 

‘‘ Giulia afraid !” exclaimed Nina. 

It does sound absurd. However, he was exaggeratedly 
courteous and complimentary, and then he went away, and 
I thought how fortunate I was not a censorious person, else 
I should be wondering where she picked him up ! But 
Giulia knows this is a wicked world, and she treated me as 
if I were as wicked as Sabakine himself — brought her 
proofs. Actually showed me the duke’s letter — so very 
prettily worded — joining praise of his wife and his friend 
so neatly, that I cried out in admiration.” 

‘‘ And what did she say ?” asked Sabakine. 

“ ‘ Dear Alfredo is such a superior man !’ ” quoted Lady 
Harcourt, with so perfect an imitation of the duchess’s 
manner and languid voice, that everybody laughed. 

‘‘And now for your part in the comedy. Carlo,” said 
Nina. 

“ What a changeable world this is !” cried Sabakine. 

“ To what is that d proposT'* asked Nina. 

propos to Carlo’s turning out the duke’s confidant 
instead of the duchess’s,” returned Sabakine, coolly. 

Everybody laughed again, Nina as heartily as the 
others ; each week convinced her more thoroughly that 
Carlo’s cure was too complete for any da' ger of a relapse. 
With all her arts, Giulia da Rimini jould never again 
move him any more than if he had been made of ston« 


160 


GIULIA^S GBEEK. 


instead of the sadly inflammable materials which entered 
into his composition. 

“ Read your letter, Carlino mio,” said she ; and Carlo 
read aloud the gracefully-worded lines in which the duke 
recommended Signor Dimetri to the marchese’s friendly 
offices. 

It really does all seem Ifke a charade to which one 
hasn’t the clue,” said Lady Harcourt. “ Carlo, had you 
written to Da Rimini that Giulia was rather lonely these 
days ?” 

How could I, while Aylmer was here ^ replied mis- 
chievous Carlo. 

Ha ! sits the wind in that quarter exclaimed her 
ladyship ; then she added meditatively : That supper is 
not paid for yet.” 

She glanced from Nina to Violet. Besides themselves 
and Carlo, no one comprehended the allusion, but the trio 
recollected what she had said to Violet ; and now, for the 
first time, it struck Miss Cameron that the countess some- 
times went a little too far in her pleasantries ; then, meet- 
ing her friendly, merry gaze, thought herself absurd to be 
piqued. 

‘‘ Have I a supper to pay for, Lady Harcourt ?” asked 
Aylmer, just because he must say something after Carlo’s 
speech, which had turned all eyes, except Violet’s, upon 
him. 

H’m !” said her ladyship. At all events,, it was pro- 
phesied that but never mind ! And did you receive 

the Greek with open arms, Carlo?” 

“I should have done so, but unfortunately I was ou^ 
when he called,” Carlo replied. 

‘‘I want to ask a favor of you, Carlino, but I suppose 
you have no time to spare,” said Sabakine, so soberly that, 
quick-#^itted as the marchese was, he thought the Russian 
in earnest. 

“ Of course,” he answered ; “ always at your service. 
Why should you think I hadn’t time ?” 

“ I thought you would have to put the Greek up a little 
in his new metier — the retiring shopman always coaches the 
fellow that takes his plaee,” said Sabakine} as grave as a 
judge. 

‘‘ Attend to your manners, Alexis,” said Carlo. ‘‘ No- 
body cares abbut your morals, but ” 


GIULIA'S GREEK. 


161 


One moment,” interrupted Lady Harcourt. Get me 
some jeweler’s cotton, somebody, if Carlo is going to dissect 
Sabakine’s mental anatomy. My ears are not hardened 
enough to endure that.” 

As soon as there was a lull in the laughing chatter, Mbs 
Cameron rose to take her leave. 

“ Going already, Violet !” expostulated Nina. 

‘‘ I must. You know my cousin arrived yesterday. I 
promised to take her out to drive.” 

“Acoyj^n — a feminine one! You are less fortunate 
than Giulia,” sa^d Lady Harcourt. 

But my destos are so much less, you must remember !” 

“ I hope Miss !a)an vers is well,” Aylmer said, as Violet’s 
rising bfbught hfnf*within reach of her. 

“ Rath er"TIi-^ wet — a little shy and disconsolate, too, I 
am afraid.” , 

“She certainly cannqt be so long in your house.” 

“I hope not,” Viojet replied. 

“I was going to inquire after you all,” continued Ayl- 
mer, “but I saw your cji^riage pass in the street. May I 
come to-morrow?” t 

“ Of course. By the ^way, the professor has promised 
to dine with us en fcunille? Pray come too, if you are not 
better occupied.” 

“As if that were possil^ ! I shall be delighted 1” re- 
turned he, with more energy than the occasion absolutely 
required ; but fortunately the others were listening to some 
remark qf Lady Harcourt’s, and did not hear. 

A rose'that Violet wore in her corsage dropped on the 
ff6or. i^dmer picked it up, and she held out her hand, 
sayiT!5^ : 

“ Thanks !” 

He bqtV over her gloved fingers as if in leave-taking, 
holding back the fiower and looking at her with such an 
eagein?fftfeaty to be allowed to keep it that permission or' 
»refusal seemed important, trifling as the 'matter was. So 
Violet simply appeared unconscious tliat she had lost the 
rose, and turned to exchange some last laughing words 
with Nina and the rest. 

Cai lo came^’Slorward and offered his arm to conduct 
her down stairs, and Aylmer thought his friend a monster 
for not leaving the' pleasant duty to him. He longed to 
take his departure also, but his culte was so sabred that he 


163 


GIULIA^a GREEK, 


never could bear doing the least thing which would render 
his attentions to Miss Cameron pointed in the eyes of their 
acquaintances. His precious secret must risk no contam- 
ination from premature exposure to those sharp-witted, 
careless-tongued people, who made a jest of every subject 
under heaven, from an idyl to a tragedy. 

This time he had a little reward for his self-denial in 
listening to her praises. As the door closed behind Violet 
and Carlo, Lady Harcourt exclaimed, with unusual earnest- 
ness : 

That charming creature always affects me like a breath 
of pure air.” 

‘‘ I really believe she lives in some higher sphere, and 
just stoops to us occasionally,” said Sabakine ; then, as if 
ashamed of ever speaking seriously, he added with a laugh : 
“ To leave her is like going out of church, without any of 
the bored sensation.” 

Oh, nobody could pose less for a saint,” rejoined Lady 
Harcourt. “ She is never prudish, never shocked ; yet 
somehow, bright and witty as she is, she gives me the feel- 
ing of a Una set in the midst of our — I mean your — wick- 
edness.” 

‘‘ Because she is the best, purest creature that ever 
lived !” cried Nina, enthusiastically. 

“ Isn’t that her one fault ?” asked Sabakine. “ She is 
a thought cold — her atmosphere is a little too rarefied.” 

“ She has a heart equal to her head, and that is saying a 
great deal,” responded Nina. 

“ Only no man has ever succeeded in waking it,” said 
Sabakine. 

“ I hope, for her sake, none ever will,” observed Lady 
Harcourt. It would be curious to watch her under such 
circumstances, but she is so earnest, so enthusiastic beneath 
her coating of ice, that the experiment would probably 
prove dangerous, considering what you men are.” 

“You need not compliment her at our expense, eh, Ayl- 
mer?” pronounced Sabakine, with- a mischievous glance. 

“ I agree with Lady Harcourt,” Laurence replied, so 
quietly that Nina indulged in a hasty wonder if it could be 
possible her idea in regard to the state of bis feelings was 
without foundation. 

As the marchese was helping Violet into her carriage, 
she said : 


GIULIA^S GREEK 


163 


There come Giulia da Rimini’s yellow liveries down 
the street ; you will have the happiness of handing her 
up stairs. No doubt she has brought her Greek to exhibit 
to Nina.” 

Carlo was not sensitive, but he had no mind to endure 
the quizzical looks of his friends when he returned with 
Giulia and the new-comer, as he should have to do in case 
Violet’s supposition proved correct ; and he did not wish a 
tete-d-tete with her on the stairs if she came alone. 

“ Which way are you going ?” he asked. 

‘‘Home,”^he replied. 

‘‘ Couldn’t you drop me in the Piazza Maria Novella ? 
I have an errand there,” he said. 

“Oh yes ; get in — if you choose to risk Mrs. Grundy’s 
censure, supposing we are seen. Dear me, what a mortal 
terror you must have of Circe, since you are willing to 
sacrifice both our reputations in order to avoid her !” 

“ I thought you would admire my strength of mind,” 
returned Carlo, laughing, as he stepped into the carriage 
and gave the order to the footman. 

“ Or your prudence,” amended Violet. 

“ Do you really suppose I am obliged to cultivate that 
cowardly virtue where the Rimini is concerned ?” said 
Carlo, for though exceedingly sensible in most respects, he 
could never keep his overweening vanity from crying out 
at the slightest possible prick. 

“ I should be sorry to have so poor an opinion of you,” 
she replied, and changed the conversation : jests on the 
subject were disagreeable to her. 

Carlo was very attentive and tender to his wife in these 
days, often stopping away from the club and resisting the 
attractions of baccarat to remain with her. He always be- 
haved like this after one of his wanderings of fancy ; it 
was the certainty that the vagary would soon pass which 
kept Nina from becoming jealous enough for real un- 
happiness, and she possessed the wonderful wisdom and 
tact to receive the offender’s return with a sweetness 
which few women would have been able to emulate. 
She never reproached him ; appeared neither sad nor 
sulky ; she simply ignored what had happened, and ren- 
dered herself as fascinating as if he had been a new 
victim to be immolated on her shrine. 

By pursuing this line of conduct she kept a firm hold 


164 


GIULIA^S GBEEK. 


over the butterfly nature of her husband. He alvrays 
came back — usually came speedily, too ; for, besides the 
masterly talents she displayed in lier treatment of him, 
she seldom failed very soon to find means of putling 
his temporary goddess at a disadvantage. The woman 
for whom he conceived one of his violent, short-lived 
fancies, Nina was sure to pet and make much of ; seek her 
society, offer her entertainments, lay little, pitfalls, and sit 
serenely by and watch the lady fall into them, and so dis- 
gust Carlo ; and she did it all so innocently that he never 
discovered the dispelling of his dream was Nina’s work. 
He only decreed the other woman an idiot ; he beheld her 
commonplace, vapid, mere clay, unadorned by any poetical 
light, and marveled that he could for an instant have im- 
agined her anything else ; and turned towards Nina, such 
a pleasing contrast, and adored her with all his might. 

But into the contest with Madame da Rimini, Nina had 
carried more active sentiments, growing too jealous to be- 
have with her customary tact. She had reached so high a 
pitch of exasperation at her impotency to counteract Circe’s 
spells, that she might have risked ruin of her peace by open 
hostilities, liad not Violet come so adroitly to her aid and 
ended Carlo’s thraldom by the blow to his vanity. 

“I never, never can repay you, Violetta mia !” Nina 
would say. ‘‘You see how efPectually he is cured — thanks 
to you. Oh, a man — was there ever anything so weak !” 
Adding this latter exclamation with the sort of pitying 
scorn one so often notices in women’s words, and in their 
treatment of the opposite sex. Violet understood her 
state of mind, and only wondered that such commiserat- 
ing contempt had no effect upon her tenderness for her 
husband. It seemed to Violet that she should never be 
able to behave as Nina did, though she acknowledged 
the wisdom of such conduct. She could never conde- 
scend to similar warfani — to those little plots — those 
crafty efforts to recall the wandering masculine fancy ; 
nor, when the infatuation passed, could she receive the 
delinquent with such complete ignoring of his misdeeds 
— such entire unconsciousness that he had strayed into 
forbidden paths. 

Were the case her own, she should hate him ; she was 
sure of that. Still, she could admit that such conduct 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


165 


showed real wisdom, though admitting it with a certain 
disdain which would speedily have chilled her friendly feel- 
ings for almost any other woman than Nina. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 



HERE was a little stir of curiosity in the room, 
carefully suppressed, of course, as the duchess 
entered with the Greek, and attended by her 
withered, weedy dame de com2mgnie^ whom she 
always remembered to produce when desirous of 
appearing intensely respectable. 

‘‘ She must have picked him up somewhere, and forged 
the letters from the duke,” Sabakine said in a low voice to 
Lady Harcourt, while Giulia was presenting her cavalier to 
the hostess. “She is always deep in deviltry when she 
drags out that unfortunate dme damneeP 

“ Who always reminds me of a squirrel set to guard a 
boa-constrictor,” returned Lady Harcourt in the same un- 
dertone. “ But listen — isn’t she delicious ?” 

“ Such a shame Carlo is gone !” sighed Sabakine, and 
the genuine disappointment in his tone, and Lady Har- 
couri’s sympatlietic glance in answer, were a proof that 
the absent one had been wise to beat a retreat. 

“ Cara march esa,” the duchess was saying, “ let me pre- 
sent to you a dear friend of my husband’s ! I knew the 
surest way of enchanting Signor Dimetri with Florence 
would be to bring him at once to your house, dearest 
Nina.” 

“ Where you and your friends are so welcome, duchess ; 
though the signore will soon learn how you overrate its 
attractions — unless he is always careful to come in your 
company,” returned the marchesa, bestowing a courteous 
smile on the stranger, though her intimates perfectly under- 
stood the reservation that last clause held, whatever might 
be the case with the Greek, who bowed and answered with 
sufficient readiness and ease. 


166 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE, 


“ Is this yoiDr first visit to Florence, Signor Dimetri ?” 
Nina asked. 

My first,” he replied ; “ and I am already wondering 
how I could have deferred it so long.” 

‘‘ I hope you left the duke quite well,” continued Nina ; 
and again Sabakine and Lady Harcour! oxci ;.niged covert 
smiles, delighted by the adroitness with which the little 
Russian signified to the duchess that she was no longer 
afraid of defying her. 

“ Still suffering from that tiresome sciatica, which 
forces him to keep within reach of his Paris doctor,” re- 
sponded Dimetri. 

“ How could Shakespeare declare there was nothing in 
names,” said Sabakine, in a fresh aside to Lady Harcourt. 
‘‘ Only think what a blessing for a worn-out debauchee 
like Rimini to find such a moral-sounding title to cover his 
ailments ; a saint might have sciatica, you know !” 

“My husband gave Signor Dimetri a letter to Carlo,” 
said the duchess quickly, and she pronounced the words 
“ my husband ” with a tender stateliness which caused 
Sabakine’s face to express such ecstatic delight, that Lady 
Harcourt had much ado not to laugh. “ So you and he 
will have to share in my pleasurable duty of playing 
cicerone.” 

“Carlo will appreciate the duke’s compliment, dear 
Giulia,” said Nina, sweetly; “but any efforts of his will 
seem so very poor beside yours ! The marchese received 
yoiir card. Signor Dimetri. Too bad, he is out, Giulia ; 
Violet Cameron carried him off only a few minutes since.” 

The duchess smiled and turned to speak to the assem- 
bled group, but she meant to make Nina introduce the 
Greek whether she would or not, and said : 

“I presented the signore to Lady Harcourt at ray 
house ” (the Greek bowed, and her ladyship returned the 
salute), “ so he will be quite one of us without loss of 
time when you have named him to your masculine adorers.” 

“And will speedily discover that I have no power over 
them when you are near,” said Nina, perfectly concealing 
her vexation at being forced by her antagonist to do what 
she had a moment before resolved she would not on any 
terms. 

“Upon my word, Giulia’s gigantic audacity deserves 
the overwhelming success it meets,” was Sabakine’s com- 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


167 


meiit in Lady Harcourt’s ear, as he moved forward in 
obedience to the hostess’s appeal : 

‘‘Prince Sabakine, the duchess desires me to present to 
you her husband’s friend, Signor Dimetri.” 

“ Quick-witted little fairy ! She has managed, after all, 
to put the onus on Giulia,” thought Lady Harcourt, re- 
garding her with admiring eyes. 

Sabakine was charmingly courteous, but very grand 
seigneur, as he could be on occasion, and the Greek made 
his bows and speeches to him and the others, as the 
marchesa named them, with a composure which Lady Har- 
court decided held an undetinable something which proved 
that his ease proceeded from effrontery, not thorough 
breeding. 

A fresh installment of Nina’s exquisite Caravan tea was 
brought in for the new-comers, and her ladyship said : 

'“I cannot resist, though if I drink any more I shall be 
neai' a ciHse de nerfs! May 1 trouble you. Signor Dimetri ?” 
she'added to the Greek, who stood near the table on which 
the smoking samovar had been set. 

She moved to give him a place on the sofa beside her, 
and conversed most amiably for some moments, while 
laughing talk went on, and the result of her ladyship’s 
study was a meditation which ran in this wise : 

“ You are an adventurer, but your manners are good 
enough, and you certainly are very handsome. You are 
not a coward either — a score of devils stare out of your 
eyes — and you are perfectly incapable of fear, moral or 
physical. Giulia is certain to rush into one of her passions 
for you, you broad-shouldered, passionate-eyed, cruel- 
mouthed creature ! and you look capable of beating her if 
she offended you — and I am sure I hope you will ! Now 
why did the duke send you to her? Have you got a hold 
over him? did he owe you money? No, you are not that 
sort of man. Did he project his soul into futurity, and 
gloat over the prospect of yonr one day murdering Giulia, 
:ind so freeing him from the pair of you ? or what was his 
motive? Well, time will show — at all events the doubt 
gives something to look forward to. Perhaps now Giulia 
will relinquish her designs on Aylmer. Oh no, she won’t ! 
— she hopes to tease Violet Cameron. Can she ? H’m ! I 
am puzzled there. Ah, she has captured Aylmer, and taken 
him behind the flower-stand in the window. Now she 


168 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


peeps to see if the Greek notices — she is afraid of him ! 
And he sees lier, though he does appear so occupied with 
what he is saying to me — he sees her ! He is one of those 
creatures that can look in every direction at once — a 
faculty left from that stage of development in which he 
was some sort of feline animal in a tropical jungle.” 

The duchess, who had strayed away to examine the 
flowers, managed to catch the trimmings of her gown in a 
jardiniere, and summoned Aylmer, who stood nearest, by 
pointing out her mishap. While lie Avas extricating the 
lace, she said, in a voice inaudible to the others : 

‘‘ Mr. Aylmer, will you do me a favor?” 

I shall be most happy, duchess — you are sure of that !” 

“Ah, I don’t w^ant compliments. I mean a real favor, 
though it is not a diflicult one for you to grant.” 

“ You have only to tell me what it is,” he answered. . 

“ I saw you were not prepossessed wdth him,” making a 
slight gesture of her finger towards the Greek. 

“ I assure you ” 

Oh, I saw ! I am very quick to notice even little 
things,” she continued rapidly. “I want you to promise 
me to be friendly wdth him — do j^our best to make the 
rest so.” 

“Any person wdiom you introduce, duchess, is certain 
of meeting with every attention,” he replied, rather 
evasively. 

“ Promise me — do promise !” she exclaimed, speaking 
scarcely above her breath, but with an earnestness Avhich 
was reflected in her eyes. 

“I can certainly promise to show every courtesy in my 
power,” he said. 

“ It is very important to me,” she continued. “ I will 
tell you why — I cannot here. "Will you come to my house? 
I am going home. Please come. Ah ! if you knew, I am 
sure you would not refuse ! You at least have so trie 
generosity, some feeling ! you are not like all those pea]>le 
there, wdio would not lift a finger to save friend or sister 
from a burning house !” 

She spoke with a repressed passion and bitterness so 
evidently unfeigned that, distasteful as she was to him, he 
could not help a certain sensation of pity. 

“Will you come?” siie repeated. “Will you do me 
the favor ?” 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


169 


Please do not call so slight a thing a favor — of ; 50 urse 
I will come,” he answered. 

“ Oh, thanks — thanks !” 

She moved away and sat down beside Nina. Lady 
llarcourt released the Greek, and the conversation became 
general. Out of sheer sympathy for any creature who ap' 
peared solitary and miserable, Aylmer several times drew 
Giulia’s faded dame de eompagnie into the talk ; but, 
though her habitually anxious, startled face showed she 
appreciated his kindness, she seemed nervous at the very 
sound of her own voice. A lady born and bred — a sensi- 
tive woman with weak nerves and, originally, principles 
and a sense of right and wrong — forced by the exigencies 
of fate to accept an anomalous position in Giulia da 
Rimini’s house ! It was no marvel that after living 
through five years of such an existence she looked, as Lady 
Harcourt expressed it, ‘‘ like a mouse caught in a trap — a 
mouse possessing gleams of a soul instead of a tail.” 

“ Mademoiselle de Roquefort, I think we must go if we 
mean to drive to the hospital,” said the duchess. Signor 
Diraetri, it would be cruel to drag you away.” 

But that personage was too astute to prolong his visit. 

I have an appointment with the Brazilian consul,” he 
said, and must make my respectful adieus to the marchesa.” 

A couple of the other men took their leave at the same 
moment. 

As the duchess passed Aylmer, she shot a reminding 
glance at him ; but, rapid as it was, that terrible Lady 
Harcourt caught it. 

“ She made an appointment as they stood by the jardi- 
niere,” thought her ladyship. ‘‘ Oh, Laurence Aylmer, is it 
possible that after raising your hopes to Violet Cameron, 
you can abase them ‘ to batten on carrion’ ? But you are 
only a man ! Perhaps, after all, I do you injustice ; time 
will show that too.” 

As soon as the retiring guests were safe out of hearing, 
a chorus of voices arose. 

“Was ever impudence like hers?” cried Nina. 

“ Her new man to be one of us immediately !” said Sab- 
akine. 

“ He seems well enough,” said Nina ; “ but what an evil 
mouth !” 

“Very han isome,” pronounced Lady Harcourt, “and I 
8 


170 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE, 


hope sufficiently wicked to have invented some new sin ; 
one is so tired of the old vices.” 

And to be forced in on us like this,” said somebody else; 
not knowing anything xbout him, or where be came from !” 

‘‘He came straight from the duke,” said Lady Har- 
court. “ I am sure it would be a comfort if one knew noth- 
ing about three-quarters of the people we meet in this 
blessed town.” 

Fresh visitors were announced, and she rose to go. 

“Be grateful, marchesa, that Da Rimini’s present is at 
least presentable, since you have a share in him. Au revoir, 
I shall see you all at Potaski’s to-night? Mr. Aylmer, be 
good enough to aid my tottering steps with your arm — you 
look as if you were just going to take leave.” 

“ You pretend that because you want to carry him off,” 
said Nina, gayly. 

“ Only to the foot of the stairs — I have no sheep-dog to 
guard me, as dear Giulia had,” laughed her ladyship 

When they reached the anteroom, she said to Aylmer : 

“ I did not mean take leave of your senses, you know.” 

“ Have you seen any signs ?” he asked. 

“I see nothing ever — absolutely nothing !” she an- 
swered. “ That is what makes me the safest person in the 
world.” 

“ I shall remember your words when I have a secret to 
confide,” said he. 

As she got into her carriage, she continued : 

“ Can I set you down anywhere ? I don’t pass the 
Palazzo Amaldi, but I do the Rimini.” 

“ Thanks ; my lodgings are not in the direction of 
either,” he replied, laughing in spite of himself. 

“I see nothing,” repeated she; “not even a flower- 
stand when it is near enough for me to fall over it. Good- 
by, Don Melancholy — at least you always look like one, 
though I can’t perceive that you are. You ought to wear 
a cavalier’s dress, you know. Don’t forget my evening — 
and ” 

“ l am not likely to. Lady Harcourt.” 

“ And just remember that sometimes elaborately private 
flower-stand performances are seen and watched — are meant 
to be, by the female wit which arranges them.” 

She nodded, smiled, and drove away, thinking : 

“ Of what use would warnings be ? If fate and Giulia 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


171 


mean to make him trouble, they will. Besides, I never 
meddle — that has been the ruling principle of my life : it 
is necessary to have one of some sort.” 

And Aylmer felt confident that she knew where he was 
bound as well as if she had heard the duchess’s words. 

“ If she were not the woman she is,” he thought, “ what 
a dangerous creature she would be, with those lynx-eyea 
and unfailing intuitions.” 

He walked on, wishing heartily destiny had not thrown 
him in the duchess’s way that morning, and thereby spared 
him the present interview. He was a man so singularly 
free from vanity it had never occurred to him to suspect 
that Carlo’s jests in regard to the lady’s fancy possessed 
any foundation, and even had masculine weakness prompted 
him to think so, the duchess’s efforts to attract his attention 
would have been as much thrown away as now, from the 
fact that Violet Cameron’s image filled his heart and soul, 
to the utter exclusion of every other member of her sex. 

But he would gladly have avoided the interview ; he 
had no desire to become the duchess’s confidant, to have 
any part whatever in her secrets. The woman was distaste- 
ful to him, had been from the moment he set eyes on her, 
and he vaguely mistrusted her — not on account of the 
aspersions cast upon her by her associates, for in Florence no 
two friends ever appeared to meet without having scandal- 
ous stories to relate of their mutual acquaintance, but be- 
cause he felt her to be false and cruel — as utterly without 
principle as she was destitute of pity. Her very beauty 
was in a style antipathetic to him, and he had vexed Carlo 
sorely by declaring, when he first met her, that he preferred 
the plainness of the most faded blonde to the voluptuous 
charms of a big, black woman with fiery eyes, like the 
duchess, which, even when they wore their softest aspect, 
reminded him of a midday in the torrid zone. 

However, there was no escape ; he must go to the 
Palazzo Rimini, and he tried to find a little sympathy for 
her by reflecting that her agitation and trouble had been 
real ; but the wish would come back that she had chosen 
her confidant elsewhere. 

The duchess was at home, the porter told him — would 
he please to walk up stairs? The servant at the entrance 
of the great gloomy antechamber, where on a dais still 
stood the two faded gilt chairs in which dukes and duchesses 


172 


AN VNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


of bygone generations used to sit in state to receive their 
dependents, had evidently been given his orders. Aylmer 
was ushered without delay through several dingy, cheerless 
salons into a room somewhat more habitable, in which the 
duchess usually spent her mornings. 

She was there now, standing by a window looking down 
into the narrow street where the sun never penetrated save 
for a brief space towards noon, and the lofty palace oppo- 
site seemed frowning at its neighbor with inimical glances. 

She turned as Aylmer was announced — swept forward 
to meet him, her long black velvet draperies trailing over 
the square of Turkey carpet spread like an oasis in the midst 
of the desert of cold pavement — her face appearing at its 
best in the sad, troubled expression which lay like a cloud 
upon it 

“ Thank you very much for coming,” she said, in the 
sweetest tones of her indolent Southern voice, wdiose slight 
tremulousness was the more noticeable from the contrast 
to its customary slow, firm ring. She extended her hand, 
then seated herself on a couch which would hold two com- 
fortably ; but Aylmer took possession of an easy-chair by 
the table placed in front of the sofa. It was very kind of 
you,” she added. 

“ Pray do not use such an inapplicable word,” he pleaded. 

‘‘It is the right one,” she replied, shaking her graceful 
head. “ Do you know, even after begging you to come, I 
was almost ready to bid them refuse you admittance ! But 
I could not have excused my seeming rudeness, and besides — 
no, it is stronger than I — I must speak to some one — I can- 
not endure my burden in silence !” 

He scrutinized her narrowly ; she was not acting, he 
decided ; but why, of all people, she should have selected 
him to reveal the strait in which she found herself, remained 
a complete puzzle. 

“ I do not, of course, understand what you mean ; at 
least, if any trouble has come upon you, signora, you can 
be sure of my profound sympathy,” he answered, and won- 
dered if he looked as awkward as he felt, mentally con- 
gratulating himself that the speech sounded less stilted in 
Italian than it would have done in English. 

“I was sure of that,” she said, “else I should not have 
spoken to you as I did.” She paused a moment ; seemed 
trying to control herself, then suddenly exclaimed with in- 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


173 


finite passion and pathos : Oh, Laurence Aylmer, I am 
the most wretched creature alive !” 

Now if a man be ready to fall on his knees or open his 
arms in order to console a woman who makes a declaration 
of that nature, the hearing it no doubt possesses a keen in- 
terest ; but Aylmer was not prepared to do anything of the 
sort, nor did he for an instant suppose the duchess desired 
either of such methods of consolation. ITnfeignedly aston- 
ished by the outburst, he could think of nothing to say 
except : 

‘‘ Oh, signora, signora !” 

Luckily for him, face and voice were as expressive as 
can be bestowed upon a human being, and Lady Harcourt 
would have vowed that he resembled a cavalier or trouba- 
dour more than ever, as he leaned forward and fastened his 
melancholy gaze on the duchess. 

“ The most wretched creature alive !” she repeated, 
flinging up her hands in protest against earth and heaven. 
Then, with an effort at calmness, she added : “I did not 
mean to behave like this ! You will think I am acting — 
you Northerner ! Remember how difticult it is for us im- 
pulsive Italians to be calm and composed as your icy ladies 
are, no matter what comes.” 

Northerner though I am, be certain I can sympathize 
with suffering,” said Aylmer, and wished himself on the 
other side of the Alps. 

The duchess’s trouble was real ; her fright real too (and 
she was not a woman easily frightened), but neither dis- 
tress nor alarm impeded her invention or dulled her craft. 
When she entered Nina’s salon and saw Aylmer, the idea 
flashed across her that even the dilemma in which she found 
herself might be turned to use where he was concerned. 
She could trust him with her secret ; she knew that, what- 
ever happened, he would never give a hint of his knowledge 
to any human being, and her confidence must unavoidably 
effect a closer intimacy than her arts had hitherto suc- 
ceeded in bringing about. What she mentally termed his 
exaggerated chivalry would prevent his refusing friendly 
counsels to the woman who had trusted him, as often as she 
might recur to the subject, and intercourse established on 
that footing so easily glides into more tender relations ! 
And now, though she would have preferred a free, expan- 
sive gush of sympathy in return for that dramatic enunci- 


174 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


ation of misery, it was a groat step gained to have touched 
his generous impulse to the quick. 

“ I know you can,” she said ; “ only that knowledge 
could have encouraged me to speak when we met to-day. 
Do rot think me bold and unfeminine because I trans- 
gress the laws which hedge us poor women in ! Ah, if 
you could imagine the comfort it was when I saw you ! I 
had felt so utterly alone. The trouble had fallen so sud- 
denly ! I could not think — could not tell how to act, and I 
said to myself, at least there was one human being to whom 
I could speak without fear !” 

Oh, if she would come to an explanation of her woes 
and be done ! He was sorry for her ; he would help her if 
he could, hard as bethought it that she should have singled 
him out for the task ; but he grew terribly impatient to get 
to the end. 

‘‘ If there is anything I can do to serve you,” he said, 
only tell me — it shall be done at once.” 

‘‘Nobody can help me !” she cried. 

Then why the deuce did she fall upon him ? he reflected 
with a sudden irritation which chilled his pity. 

“Nobody can help me, and I am powerless !” added the 
duchess. 

“We are all apt to think so when trouble comes,” 
he answered. “ Surely your straits cannot be so hopeless. 
I am speaking in the dark ; remember I do not know what 
has happened.” 

“ Let me try and get my poor wits back and behave 
rationally,” she faltered, pressing her hand to her head. 
“That Greek — I want you to be friendly with him, to 
make the others.” 

“I will show him every courtesy in my power, I promise 
you,” he replied, still busy in subduing his irritation. 

“Yes, I must tell you why. I cannot throw myself on 
your generosity without good reasons. Mr. Aylmer, my 
husband sent him ! Wait — I can make you understand 
more easily if I give you the letter.” 

She opened a little casket ^ that stood on the table, 
tossed about its contents in an agitated way, and finally 
placed the duke’s epistle in his hands. Aylmer read the 
page ; it held neither mystery nor menace that he could 
discover. On the contrary, it appeared a production 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


175 


which the most devoted husband might have written to his 
wife for the purpose of introducing a valued friend. 

‘‘ There certainly is nothing here, duchess, which can 
account for your alarm,” he said, his impatience increasing. 

“Ah, that is his craft,” she answered, with a bitter 
smile. “ I must tell you the whole, since I have begun ! 
Tliat man is sent as a spy, to watch me, to misrepresent, to 
twist everything I say or do into evidence which can be 
used to my hurt ! I am impulsive to an extreme — I shall 
always be ! I cannot weigh my words, calculate my con- 
duct, and it is easy to blacken a woman who is frank, per- 
haps imprudent, because, convscious of her own rectitude, 
she believes her truth will be her shield.” 

The duchess was about as impulsive as a cobra di 
capello^ and her frankness of a kind that would have won 
Machiavelli’s admiration, but one needed to know her as 
thoroughly as poor Mademoiselle de Roquefort did to dis- 
cover this ; therefore small blame to Aylmer that, in spite 
of his acuteness, his limited acquaintance led him to put 
faith in her opening assertions, whatever his opinion might 
be of her uprightness and rigid principles. 

“ A spy !” she repeated. “Only look in his insolent, 
perfidious face ; one can see at a glance that the creativ’e 
was well chosen for his work !” 

“ Surely you must be mistaken, duchess !” 

“No, no. Listen, Mr. Aylmer ! Though my husband's 
conduct forces me to live apart from him, nobody can say 
I ever went about detailing my wrongs — my worst enemy 
could not — nor could he deny that they have been many.” 

A fact, Aylmer knew. The duke was a man posi- 
tively steeped in vice ; almost as shameless in his open ex- 
posure thereof as the mediaeval ancestors from whom he 
derived the base instincts which he had fostered with per- 
verse assiduity. 

“ The time came when I could endure no longer,” she 
hurried on, “ but since his departure I have never opened 
my lips except to speak kindly of him ! I have affected to 
consider our separation the necessity of circumstances. 
That the world comprehended the truth, I was aware ; his 
outrages had been too public for that not to be the case. 
But I would have no pity. 1 held my peace — you know 
that society, cruel as it is, admits this.” 

“ I do,” he replied ; “ and supposing your separation an 


17 « 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


amicable one, I am at a loss to imagine what motive the 
duke could have for such conduct as tliis.” 

His motive — it is easy to explain ! He believed that 
I would live with him again — he used every inducement to 
make me. I could not ; if it had been possible I would ; 
but, oh, there are limits to a woman’s endurance !” She 
stopped with a shudder, then after a moment continued 
more quietly : “ During the last few months he has ceased 
to urge me — ceased to hope it. Now he wants his revenge ; 
oh, it is too dreadful ! My life has been my safeguard, so 
he devises this plot. If lie could manage to entrap me as 
he thinks, not only would he be relieved from paying the 
greater portion of the income I have now, but he could 
take my child — my child ; yes, give her to that horrible 
woman who is his companion in Paris — who helps him on 
when his man’s invention fails.” 

Aylmer uttered an ejaculation of wondering horror. 

‘‘ It sounds incredible,” she continued ; “ but it is the 
simple truth. I knew they were at work, but w^as at a loss 
to imagine what form their machinations would take until 
the very day of this man’s arrival there came information 
which made it easy for me to understand his errand.” 

‘‘ Yet you received him ” 

“ Good heavens, what could I do ?” 

‘‘ I should have turned him out of doors,” replied 
Aylmer, bluntly. 

‘‘ And so added personal vindictiveness to the induce- 
ments which have set him to dog me like a bloodhound ! 
No, no ; a man might be so fearless — a woman cannot. I 
must temporize, act a part, odious and difficult as it is to 
my nature ; I must let him visit me — ^be friendly. Ah, 
you blame me — I see it in your face.” 

“ It seems to my view that no good ” 

“ Remember my child — my innocent little daughter !’ 
she interrupted. “ She would be taken from me — given td 
that demon ! Oh, I almost feel that if it were not for her 
I should cry out : ‘ Do what you like — I can struggle no 
longer !’ I would bow my head and creep away into 
obscurity, and let the world believe what he wishes — 
believe that I am what he tried so hard and so long to 
make me.” 

She Iiid her face in her hands. 

“ I have- said the worst now,” she went on in a choked 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


177 


voice. Oh, I know that it seems terrible for a woman to 
speak to any man as I am doing ! but try to understand — 
think how suddenly this trouble has come ! I have been 
strong and brave, but for the moment to-day I was at the 
end of my courage. I spoke to you before I realized what 
I was doing ; after that — after such a request — I was bound 
to explain. You will not misjudge me as one of my own 
countrymen might — you will let me feel that I have one 
friend who pities — who would help me if it were possible ?” 

“ That I certainly would,” he answered, though again 
he wished devoutly that she had chosen her confidant else- 
where, especially as she had no task to set him ; he could 
aid her in nothing beyond the negative assistance of being 
civil to the Greek, and he would have been that at her re- 
quest without this tragic scene, as useless as it was painful. 

“ What can I do, what can I do ?” she moaned. 

Difficult to tell the lady that it behooved her to be ex- 
ceedingly circumspect in her conduct, yet this counsel alone 
suggested itself to his mind, causing him to feel more un- 
comfortable than ever. 

Surely if this fellow has come on such an errand as 
you believe, every door would be closed against him, were 
it known ; any man of your acquaintance would horsewhip 
him out of Florence with pleasure.” 

“And ruin me !” she cried. “No ; I must meet craft 
with craft — I must learn how to do it — to feign, to dissim- 
ulate ; oh, I had learned to be silent, but I never thought to 
stoop so low !” 

“ And you hope in this way to foil his intentions ?” 

“ Yes ; he may be deluded into betraying himself — that 
would render him utterly powerless. If not, then, seeing 
what my life is, he will discover that even his ingenuity 
cannot distort its open candor to serve his wicked purpose, 
and so he may give up the game. Think of every side — • 
am I not right ?” 

“ Indeed, duchess, I am at a loss how to advise ” 

“Ah, you blame me — most of all perhaps for speaking — 
for yielding to my consciousness that I could trust you !” 
she exclaimed. 

“ I can only feel honored by it,” he said. 

“ I should have borne my burden as I had hitherto — - 
alone — if I had only had time to reflect — to get my courage 
back,” she continued. “ Do not condemn me ; do not think 
8 * 


178 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


me unwomanly ! Oli, if you knew what a relief it is to 
speak, even though I f^el ashamed in so doing ! Oh, these 
past ten years— ten years ! I was only eighteen when they 
married me to him ; they took me from a convent, as 
ignorant of the world as a babe — no suffering, no degrada- 
tion has been spared me ! Ah, I think I am mad to talk 
like this ! yet I cannot have you judge me harshly. I 
was wrong to say a word — very wrong ; but having done 
so, I must make you comprehend how desperate this new 
danger has rendered me. Oh, I have self-respect enough left 
to be ashamed !” 

“ No, no !” he said eagerly. ‘‘ Pray believe that you 
have my warmest, fullest sympathy — only I feel so terribly 
helpless.” 

“ Give me that — you can do nothing more. But sym- 
pathy is a great deal to a woman so completely alone as I !” 

“ Rest certain you have it, duchess.” 

Thanks — a thousand thanks !” she cried. “ And you 
will try to judge leniently ? — try not to think me wrong in 
telling you the truth ?” 

“ I have no need to try,” he answered truthfully ; for the 
man does not live so destitute of vanity that he could very 
harshly condemn a woman because she offers him her con- 
fidence, however troublesome it may be to find himself the 
recipient of such trust, or however much he might censure 
her for bestowing it upon any other. 

“ Now, I want you to go. Do not think me rude in 
sending you away so unceremoniously. You will not see 
me like this again ! I shall endeavor to act for the best ; 
but recollect we women cannot boldly attack our enemies 
like you men — we must outwit them. It is the penalty we 
pay for our weakness — for the unjust laws by which your 
sex has hemmed us in. Stale old complaints, I know, but 
terribly, terribly true !” 

She rose and gave him her hand with a mournful smile. 
He had never seen her look so interesting as she did at this 
moment. Repressed misery, patience, regret at her own 
frankness, yet a sense of comfort in having spoken — all 
these feelings were expressed in her face, and she dropped 
slowly into one of her majestic attitudes, which would have 
inspired a sculptor. 

Aylmer reiterated those protestations which the position 
^actually forced upon him, and took his leave. 


AN UNWELCOME CONFIDENCE. 


179 


The duchess was tolerably satisfied with the results of 
the interview, though the gentleman certainly had not ap- 
proached the verge of tenderness by so much as a word, 
but, keen-sighted as she might be, Giulia da Rimini had 
sufficient confidence in the power of her own charms to be- 
lieve that no man could long resist them when they were 
fully put forth, and she naturally supposed Aylmer’s very 
eloquent glances must mean something beyond mere com- 
monplace commiseration. His failing to make the use of 
the situation which many men would have done, only be- 
came a proof that she had so thoroughly preserved her dig- 
nity that he feared the utterance of warmer sympathy 
might bring upon him the reproach of repaying her trust 
by an insult. 

It would have been difficult for most of her acquaint- 
ances to credit the statement, but every syllable she had 
uttered was the literal truth. Yet not only could she rejoice 
over the arrival of a crisis which afforded an opportunity to 
establish a bond between herself and Aylmer ; but, in spite 
of her terror of the Greek, she felt no personal repulsion 
towards the villain — his exceeding beauty prevented it. So 
far from despising the baseness which could have induced 
him to undertake an errand like his, she considered his doing 
so a proof of ability, and she admired the unlimited faith 
in his own powers which he must possess to imagine that it 
would be possible for him to out-general her. 

Ah, she should have a great deal upon her hands — full 
occupation — and excitement was always welcome. She had 
by no means given up the hope of reclaiming Carlo — she 
had the Greek to subdue, either by turning his head or 
finding some more profitable bargain to offer than the 
duke’s ; Laurence Aylmer to lead through the realm of 
friendship into a maze from whence escape would prove an 
impossibility; and Violet Cameron to punish ! Oh ! nothing 
could be more imperative than that duty, and her hatred 
was increased by the certainty of her intended victim’s 
caring for the heiress. She only wanted to be sure that 
Violet’s feelings were interested, then subjugation of Ayl- 
mer would afford revenge upon the haughty, scornful 
creature. 

And Laurence went his way, not in the least softened in 
his judgment of the duchess by his pity, though he gave 
her that freely, and no more reflected upon the possible 


180 


DI0GENE8'>8 ADVICE. 


false position into which the sentiment might force him 
than any other generous, impulsive man does where a woman 
is concerned. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

DIOGENES’ S ADVICE. 

O you and Miss Bronson have been doing a lit- 
tle sight-seeing, Mary,” Miss Cameron said 
the next evening, as her cousin entered the 
room where she sat awaiting the two guests 
whom she had invited to dine. 

“We went to the UfEzi gallery,” Mary answered, “and 
to San Marco.” 

“ And you were pleased ?” Violet asked, making room 
for her to sit beside her on the sofa. 

“ Oh, yes,” Mary replied, and said no more, and Violet 
wondered if her relative were as unenthusiastic as she 
seemed undemonstrative ; but something in Mary’s face — 
an eager, yet satisfied, expression which brightened it — 
warned Miss Cameron that she might be judging hastily. 
Perhaps the girl was capable of both enthusiasm and demon- 
strativeness, but still felt too new and strange in her present 
surroundings to betray either. 

“ I am glad to find that Mary has a very proper appre- 
ciation of art,” said Eliza Bronson, who appeared just 
after Miss Danvers, from which remark Violet compre- 
hended that Mary had listened patiently to the spinster’s 
dissertation thereon. She saw a quickly repressed smile 
flit over her cousin’s lips as Eliza spoke, and it struck her 
that perhaps, too, the little creature possessed a sense of 
humor, demure as she was. Violet hoped so ; long experi- 
ence of Miss Bronson had taught her that intimate com- 
panionship with a person who has none is frequently a trifle 
wearing. “ I think she quite enjoyed San Marco, also,” 
pursued Eliza ; “ and I was able to give her some details 
in regard to Savonarola and Fra Angelico, and — you have 
not forgotten the other, Mary, my dear ?” 

“ Fra Bartolommeo,” rejoined Mary, with the prompt 
obedience of a child repeating its lesson. 



DIOUENES^S ADVICE, 


181 


Ah, I am glad you remember ! I foresee that we 
shall acquire real benefit from our researches,” said Eliza, 
complacently. “ But, my dear, we must recollect that; 
gifted as they were, those men were very benighted crea- 
tures after all — monks, only monks !” 

The spinster uttered these words with a prolonged 
shiver, and again Violet saw the dimples deepen about 
Mary’s mouth, but the girl caught her glance and tried to 
look serious, as if afraid of disapproval, and then seemed 
comforted when Violet laughed outright. 

^‘You cannot deny it, Violet,” said Miss Bronson, 
severely. 

‘‘I don’t mean to,” returned Violet, “so please do not 
scold me for my weakness in regard to them. I am sure 
you had a pleasanter morning than I — forced to make a 
quantity of visits and go to a charity concert into the bar- 
gain. Oh, I hate charities !” 

“ Violet, Violet !” remonstrated Miss Bronson. “ Recol- 
lect that Mary is not yet acquainted with your rather — what 
shall 1 say ? — exaggerated mode of speaking, and 

“ Mary, my dear,” broke in Violet, “ be sure you don’t 
let me contaminate you ! Eliza, your example may serve 
to protect her.” 

“ Surely you know that was not what I meant to imply,” 
began the spinster in horrified tones, but Violet pretended 
not to hear. 

“ What pretty hair Mary has,” she said, secretly deter- 
mining as she spoke that before long she would have it 
differently arranged : it looked too prim and stiff to suit 
her ideas. She really must lighten the child up somewhat 
— that severe black raiment seemed so unsuited to her. 
She rose, and went round behind the sofa, took some white 
roses out of a vase, and fastened two or three in Mary’s 
tresses so deftly that the girl did not feel her touch : in- 
deed, her mind was occupied with Violet’s remark : 

“ I am going to introduce one of my dearest friends to 
you, Mary, old Professor Schmidt, the best man in the 
world.” 

“ If he were not a — a skeptic !” cried Eliza, hesitating 
over the word, as if even the pronouncing it were a sin. 

“ He was in America once,” said Mary ; “ I read some 
lectures he delivered — they were delightful.” 


183 


DIOGENES'S ADVICE. 


I trust at least that none of his pernicious doctrines 
crept in,” said Eliza, with a deep sigh. 

“I don’t think so. They were given at a girls’ school 
— one was on botany, another on astronomy,” Mary an- 
swered ; and broke off to add, in a hesitating fashion, 
‘‘ Oh, Cousin Violet, you are all in white ! Is it a party ? 
I’d rather not — I ” 

‘^No party at all, my dear,” rejoined Violet, as Mary 
paused. “ Just the professor and another gentleman whom 
— ah, I hear their voices in the anteroom.” 

Antonio announced the German and Mr. Aylmer. Vio- 
let, standing with her hand on Mary’s shoulder, felt her 
cousin start as the latter name was pronounced, and as she 
moved forward to greet her visitor, she glanced at Mary’s 
face : it w^ore the same disturbed expression which had 
struck Violet when on the day of her arrival the girl 
caught sight of Laurence Aylmer as she entered. 

“ Fraulein,” said the professor, seizing both her hands 
in his, “ I am so hungry that I shall eat you if dinner is 
not served in two minutes. You look like a goddess !” 

“ Some heathens beat their gods — you want to devour 
yours,” returned Violet. It was very good of you to 
come, even if you do threaten to eat me, my dear old 
Diogenes.” 

“ Very good to myself,” said the professor. Ah, Miss 
Bronson, charmed to see you. You are looking unbelief 
of my having a deity of any sort.” 

“ Professor, professor !” said Eliza, in a warning whisper 
that was perfectly audible to the others, and a glance 
towards Mary to emphasize her words. “ Let me entreat 
you to avoid certain subjects which distress me at all times, 

but which, in the presence of a youthful mind ” 

Ah, Miss Mary Danvers ? I’ll be so discreet that if 
you tell her I am a disciple of Calvin she’ll believe you,” 
interrupted the professor, in an intentionally loud aside. 

Fraulein,” he added, unceremoniously breaking in on 
Aylmer’s salutations to the hostess, leave that young man 
to the neglect he deserves, and present your musty, fusty 
old adorer to your cousin ! My dear, I am very glad to 
welcome you ; I shall call you my dear, though I spare 
my excellent Miss Bronson that — in public.” 

“Professor!” cried Eliza, indignantly. “Mary, he 
never dares at any time !” 


DIOGENESES ADVICE 


183 


‘‘Mary — the very name for her! Oh, Miss Bronson, 
Miss Bronson, trust to my discretion. I will not betray 
our little secrets.” 

“ Secrets !” echoed she, in mingled distress and scorn. 
“ Excuse me, Professor Schmidt, but really your spirits 
carry you away.” 

“ My legs carried me on a tramp of ten miles to-day,” 
said he, “and that wretched Aylmer pretended an engage- 
ment just to avoid a little exercise ; he is hopeless, utterly 
hopeless, Fraulein ! I shall speak to our clergyman, Miss 
Bronson, about his excommunication.” 

“ I could wish that you had a clergyman,” said Eliza, 
with dignity. 

The other three were laughing, but all the same Violet 
had leisure to notice that one of Mary’s little flutters was 
apparent as she received Aylmer’s greeting, even in the 
niidst of her amusement at the skirmishing between Miss 
Bronson and her persecutor. But the wonder it excited in 
Miss Cameron’s mind was on this occasion divided with 
another reflection. She had not before seen Mary really 
laugh, and between merriment, that slight confusion and 
vivid blush, she looked as pretty as an impersonation of 
Spring. 

Antonio announced dinner, and the professor led the 
hostess into the dining-room, but gave his other arm to 
Marj^ saying, in a whisper, which so perfectly imitated the 
audible aside wherein Eliza had a habit of indulging, that 
with the exception of the worthy lady whom he presumed 
to mimic, his listeners were forced to laugh again : 

“ Don’t intrude on them. Miss Mary ! I have a horrible 
suspicion that my worshiped Miss Bronson is less faithful 
to me than she pretends, but I remain blind — blind. I will 
not verify my doubts, though they rack my heart, yes, to its 
furthest depths.” 

Eliza affected not to hear the unseemly jest at her 
expense, and began asking Aylmer after his health, a cere- 
mony she always went through as regularly as if he had 
been a confirmed invalid, instead of a person with every 
appearance of possessing perfect strength and vigor. 

“ You cannot .be too cautious,” she added, in response 
to his assurance that he was never better:. 

“Indeed he cannot,” cried the professor; “I hear 
every word, my Adeliza — every word !” 


184 


DIOGENES'S ADVICE. 


‘‘After an injury like yours,” pursued Eliza, steadily 
ignoring the savant’s impertinent interruption. 

“ He will meet with a worse if this continues,” said the 
professor, “ and so I warn him ! Beware, Adeliza, be- 
ware !” 

Eliza had to laugh at his comic absurdity, and the 
dinner commenced gayly enough. Presently Mary Danvers 
had a fresh disturbing prick ; chancing to catch sight of 
herself in a mirror which hung opposite, she perceived the 
flowers in her hair ; it seemed to Mary they gave her quite 
a festal appearance, and she doubted if that could be right. 
Then came the thought, how very good of Yiolet to pay 
attention enough to her appearance to put them there. 
She had half feared her cousin too elegant and fine to think 
much about a young girl ! Oh, she herself must be 
inclined to ingratitude ! The bare idea that she could be 
guilty of a sin so despicable was dreadful indeed ; and 
Violet happening to look towards her at the instant, mar- 
veled anew what the earnest gaze of the girl’s eyes could 
mean. 

The dinner passed very pleasantly. After a time Yiolet 
led the conversation to graver subjects, and brought out 
the professor, as she had meant to do. He talked in his 
most interesting fashion, and even Eliza Bronson, as she 
listened, forgot all his shortcomings in admiration. He 
Avas one of those rare people who own the faculty of con- 
versing upon scientific or abstruse subjects in a manner so 
clear that the most ordinaiy mind can comprehend. He 
had wandered over the four quarters of the globe, seeing 
with the eyes of a naturalist and a philosopher ; he pos- 
sessed a poetical appreciation of nature, and though he 
never talked for effect, never indulged in ornate periods, 
when he got fairly launched, his descriptions were so elo- 
quent and vivid that it seemed positively to bring the 
scenes he depicted before his listeners. 

It proved a blissful evening to Laurence Aylmer, though 
he talked less than usual ; he felt in a mood when just to 
sit in the presence of the woman he loved and study her face 
unobserved was happiness. 

He knew very well that any yielding to the impatience 
which at times he found so difficult to control might fatally 
injure his cause ; but when alone with her, his eager heart 
fought for utterance, till often he could not master its emo- 


DIOGENESES ADVICE, 


185 


tions, and he recognized that it was fortunate on each oc- 
casion she had either successfully prevented speech, or that 
some interruption had occurred, as, for instance, on the day 
of Mary Danvers’s arrival. 

Ah, Mary Danvers ! he saw that she was fluttered, al- 
most ill at ease, in his society, and did not like to speculate 
upon the cause ; he wished he could think it arose solely 
from her knowledge of his having met with pecuniary losses 
through her father, but once, while he and George Danvers 
were friends, the gentleman had dropped a hint that he 
should look favorably upon Aylmer’s attentions to his 
daughter. Laurence rendered it unmistakably evident 
that no such idea had entered, or could enter, his mind ; he 
regarded Mary as a mere child ; had scarcely taken the 
trouble to become acquainted with her, though he visited 
the house frequently, for Danvers could make himself very 
agreeable when he desired. And not long after that con- 
versation, Danvers’s manner had changed a little ; he de- 
voted his powers to drawing Aylmer into those business 
schemes which proved so disastrous. When the losses 
came, Laurence could not help thinking that, as soon as the 
man discovered there remained no hope of providing for 
his child against the ruin which he knew must overtake 
him in a few months, by the marriage he had contemplated, 
he recklessly and ruthlessly ermployed his arts to obtain the 
money to fling after bis own into the pit of speculation. 

These losses had involved the discomforts of a sudden 
change from ample means to a comparatively limited in- 
come, but his future would be independent of them. On 
the death of a relative he must come into possession of a 
large fortune bequeathed to her for life only, and she was 
now an elderly woman. Laurence was the last man in the 
world to calculate on such an event, but since his acquaint- 
ance with Violet Cameron the recollection that a few years 
would give him affluence became a pleasant thought ; he 
had no necessity to hesitate or fret over the fact of her 
wealth, since before long he should fully equal her in that 
particular. 

He w^as not given to talking of himself ; even to the 
professor he had never mentioned that certainty as to his 
future — indeed, he regulated it in his own mind without such 
reference. He had come to Europe meaning to revisit 
places already familiar, study the countries he had not yet 


186 


DIOGENESES ADVICE. 


Been, then return to America and devote bis energies to a 
political career. But meeting Violet entirely changed his 
projects of travel ; he could not tear himself away from 
Florence, and in her eyes, as well as those of the professor, 
he had a reason for remaining. He was a facile, brilliant 
writer, well placed in the best reviews of England and 
America, and besides occupation of that sort, busy with a 
work upon certain periods in Florentine history, which, 
often as the whole chronicle has been written, it seemed 
to him might be presented in a new aspect. 

The professor, enthusiastic over his plan, and the most 
helpful assistant imaginable in researches among musty old 
tomes and parchments, felt confident that the result of 
Aylmer’s labor must establish his reputation so thoroughly 
that the young man, convinced literature was his legitimate 
sphere, would relinquish the idea of rushing off into the 
dreary labyrinth of American politics. 

To- night, as they were walking homeward together, the 
professor, roused out of a reverie which had afforded Lau- 
rence leisure to listen to the farewell words of Violet 
Cameron, still ringing in his ears, seized Aylmer’s arm, 
stopped directly under a lamp-post, and glowered at him. 

“Aren’t you a fool?” demanded the savant, in a mild, 
insinuating voice, as if offering some highly complimentary 
remark. 

“ I dare say I am,” returned Aylmer. 

“ And I dare to say so too,” said the professor, with a 
Jupiter-like nod and a tone of exceeding triumph. “ I have 
been watching you for weeks, and I know that you are.” 

“ Rather a waste of your valuable powers ; doesn’t 
speak much either for your perspicuity, if it has taken you 
so long to arrive at such a self-evident fact,” retorted 
Aylmer, for once wishing the dogmatical old man a 
thousand leagues away. 

“ Don’t you sneer in your fine gentleman dandified 
fashion, else the first time you fall into my hands again as 
patient. I’ll — I’ll poison you !” cried the professor. “ Yes, 
I’ve been watching you ” 

“ So you just said !” 

“And you’re a fool !” 

“ You told me that too ; as I knew it already, there is 
no necessity for repeating it.” 

“ There is ! The human animal is so dull that you must 


DIOGENES'S ADVICE. 


187 


hammer at it with a fact before you can bring conviction 
to the mind in regard to the thing it knows perfectly well.” 

‘‘That sounds very fine and very German, but I don’t 
think it means anything,” said Aylmer. 

Then they both laughed, and walked on for some mo- 
ments in silence. 

“ You don’t want advice ? I never saw the human being 
who did when he really stood in need of it,” quoth the 
professor, suddenly. “ Well, well ! here we are at the 
Duomo Square ; let us walk round the cathedral, and study 
the effect of the moonlight on the side where they have 
been cleaning the walls — done with vitriol, they tell me, 
which will cause them to decay rapidly ; but as the beauti- 
ful old edifice will last our time, w’e won’t grumble at hav- 
ing it made more beautiful.” 

They passed under the shadow of the vast pile, and 
stopped behind Giotto’s tower, which rose airy and majes- 
tic — a crown of stars seeming to rest upon its summit. 
The moonlight fell full upon that part of the church — illu- 
minating one doorway which had a narrow casement on 
either side. Every detail came out with wonderful distinct- 
ness — the figures in the window-niches, the Virgin behind 
her shrine above the portal — the whole a mass of such marvel- 
ous and intricate carving, that it looked like some gigantic- 
ivory casket wrought with black and silver. 

It was late — not a person in sight — not a common street 
sound to vex the air. Suddenly the Campanile bell — that 
sweetest-voiced singer in Europe — slow y chanted midnight 
in its soft, deep, velvety bass, ringing down from the tower’s 
height with such superhuman melody that it seemed to 
Aylmer’s dreamy fancy he must be catching strains from 
the very courts of heaven — counted its orison, and was 
mute, leaving the echo of its sweetness on the listening air. 

Presently they went along the Via Calzajoli to the 
Piazza Signoria, and paused before the Palazzo Vecchio 
with its lily-like tower (the only comparison, stern gray 
stone though its material be), watched the yellow glory 
gild Orcagna’s Loggia, brighten the bronze Perseus, man- 
tle Fedi’s group — then, still in silence, wandered thrcagh 
the statue-lined colonnades of the Ulfizi, and came out up- 
on the Arno. At the right, the quaint, picturesque Ponte 
Vecchio shut in the view ; away to the left, San Miniato 
blazed with lights ; and beyand, the outlines of the distant 


188 


DIOGENESES ADVICE. 


mountains showed like cloud-castles in the transparent 
atmosphere. 

Achy what a beautiful city, what a beautiful world !” 
the professor boomed forth, llien he took a long German 
pipe from the pocket of his ulster, lighted it as carefully 
and lovingly as if it had been some sacred censer, the kin- 
dling whereof was a religious rite, puffed a column of white 
smoke into the air, and descended from philosophical medi- 
tations to deliver the lecture which he had deceitfully 
allowed Aylmer to think was to be spared. 

Young man, I do not wear a petticoat and I am not 
perhaps exactly what one might term a beauty, but I pro- 
pose to render this interview useful to your benighted 
faculties, even if I cannot make it interesting.” 

‘‘ Heaven help me !” groaned Laurence. 

“ Be silent, you !” commanded the professor, looking 
sternly out from a halo of smoke. ‘‘ You are in love with 
her — you would be an ass if you were not !” Aylmer made 
a quick, indignant gesture. ‘‘Listen to the oracle,” pur- 
sued the savant ; “ there is more behind ! She is in love 
with you, though you did not know it, nor does she.” 

Aylmer’s rising irritation vanished. He could not have 
offered any confidence ; coming from another man he 
would have regarded such words a gross impertinence, but 
he loved and honored the professor so highly that he was 
content to learn that the sage had discovered his precious 
secret, and hear him plunge with brutal frankness into a 
discussion thereof. 

“ She is growing gradually in love with you,” amended 
the savant, slowly and emphatically. “ Don’t contradict — 
don’t deny !” 

“ I have no intention where I am concerned,” Aylmer 
replied, “ but in regard to — to her — your wisdom is at 
fault. After all, why should she care for me — what man 
would be worthy ” 

“Stuff!” broke in the professor. “Nature never is 
guilty of that kind of blunder. No matter what the race 
or the sex of the animal she has in hand, she always makes 
a mate for it — a fitting one, too.” 

‘‘ In this case, though, the word you employ ” 

“Come, don’t fight over words! If you are offended 
because I said animal, I’ll substitute swan — nightingale ! I 
can’t go so far as seraph to content you, because I am mak- 


DIOGENES'S ADVICE. 


189 


ing a statement of facts, and, therefore, no imaginary 
creature will serve for a comparison.” 

^‘Confound your materialistic ideas !” 

I did not dispute the existence of seraphs, but as no- 
body ever saw one, touched one, why the race belongs to 
the domain of faith, that’s all. Come, you put me out — 
seraph, if you insist upon it, though no account we have of 
the myth includes females.” 

“ What a provoking old wretch you are !” cried Ayl- 
mer, laughing in spite of himself. 

The professor laughed too; suddenly he checked his 
merriment, laid his hand on Aylmer’s arm, and said in an 
altered voice — a voice positively sweet and tremulous with 
feeling : 

Don’t think me a nuisance ! See here — I have not 
been so fond of any two human beings in double the years 
you have lived as I am of you and her. Believe that, and 
let it be my excuse.” 

“ Dear old man ! there is no excuse needed,” returned 
Aylmer, grasping his hand cordially. ‘‘I don’t in the least 
mind your knowing what is in my heart. I am glad to talk 
to you, since you are interested enough to care.” 

‘‘Care!” repeated the professor. “We must care 
about something — something human, too. No matter how 
old and ugly we get, we never live beyond that necessity. 
I used to believe we could ; I have grown wiser, and I 
know that existence would be more incomplete than it is 
were not this as much a truth as any axiom in geometry.” 

Aylmer only answered by a pressure of the hand. 

“Now, according to the verdict of the whole world, 
there can be no greater instance of folly than a man well 
on towards seventy holding such views ; so if I called you 
a fool, you can console yourself by thinking it is much worse 
to be one at ray age than at yours,” continued the professor. 

“ Oh, I don’t mind admitting that I am a fool, but yon 
must give me something else than your last declaration as 
a proof of your folly before I believe in it.” 

“ That’s because it happens to be you I like. Human 
vanity always stands in the way of a correct, cool judg- 
ment where self comes,” said the professor, dogmatically. 
“Do you know wdiat idea will disturb her when she begins 
to see the truth V” 

Aylmer intuitively comprehended what his friend- meant. 


190 


DIOGENESES ADVICE. 


He did not answer, but the savant went on as if he had 
received a reply : 

‘‘Yes, that will be it — her seniority. Now I dare say 
that as a rule it may be a mistake for a man to marry a 
woman older than himself — but she is an exception. She is 
more beautiful to-day than she was at twenty — look at 
her picture — and no older. At forty-five she will appear 
thirty — an affair of physique — one of those marvels Na- 
ture occasionally likes to show us, like ” 

“ Don’t !” broke in Aylmer, certain that the professor, 
in his turn, was about to compare her to Ninon. 

“Ah, I understand. But all that feeling about De 
I’Enclos is stuff and prejudice. She followed natural 
selection. Well, well, don’t fidget — leave that part. This 
woman to-day is years younger in face and feeling than 
you. By the time you are thirty-three you will be as gray 
as a badger where you are not bald, and so grave and worn 
that she will seem girlish beside you.” 

“ All that is nothing ! If I could only believe she 
cared — could ever be brought to care !” 

“ Bosh ! nonsense ! You are as blind as a bat — blinder !” 
cried the professor. “And you are going to work just the 
right way to lose her ! Do you hear ? to — lose — her !” 

“ I have tried every ” 

“ A great many too many ! Leave her quiet, that is 
what you have to do. Rouse her suddenly, and you’ll 
frighten her — she will arm herself with scruples and send 
you off ! Let her alone, and she’ll float on unconsciously 
till you will become too completely master for her even to 
struggle against your supremacy. Why, just the very 
name she gives you when we talk together shows me what 
delusive haze she blinds herself under — ‘ our friend Lau- 
rence !’ ” 

“ Oh, friendship — friendship! she is always bringing me 
back to that !” Aylmer cried impatiently. 

“ Exactly. I am old and ugly, but I know how she is 
to be managed better than you, young Adonis on a colossal 
scale though you be ! I’d help you, if you would promise 
to obey implicitly.” 

“ I will promise ; I am at the end of my pwn re- 
sources.” ^ 

“ But you’ll forget to keep your word ; you’ll mirry— 
go frantic — upset everything at some inopportune moment. 


A GIBV8 TROUBLES. 


191 


'No, take your own course ; I’ll not meddle — take it and 
lose her !” 

Come now, don’t be a monster. Give me your idea.” 

“ Simply to carry out her pet theory — friendship — pure, 
simple, poetical, perfect friendship ! Let her think she has 
convinced you that ought to be the only tie between you, 
that no fancy or whim any longer disturbs your peace. Of 
course you are not to adopt this line too abruptly ; work 
up to it gradually.” 

After all, she wouldn’t be a woman if she were con- 
tent, even if she never learns to love me.” 

“ The first sensible thing you have said yet. Of course 
she’ll not be content, and her dissatisfaction, after trying 
to believe she has reached the state of affairs she wanted, 
will win you your prize.” 

“ To wait, to be patient when one’s very heart is on 
fire ! — I don’t care if I am talking like a fool, it is such a 
relief ! — do literally nothing ” 

“ That your role — masterly inactivity. Always difficult 
for human nature ; it wants to manage, direct — like me, for 
instance.” 

‘‘ But your idea is the right one, I am convinced of that.” 

Then follow it, and in less than six months you will 
have reason to thank me for giving it. Come, I am going 
home to Led ; I can’t lose my sleep worrying over your 
affairs.” 

He put his arm through Aylmer’s with a gentleness that 
belied his brusque words, and they walked on in silence. 


CHAPTER XX. 

A giel’s teoubles. 

T must be admitted that the two cousins began 
their intercourse with certain preconceived 
opinions on either side which seemed likely to 
prevent a thorough understanding or warm 
friendship making rapid growth between them, 
Mary was remorsefully conscious that on the day of her 



192 


A GIBUS TROUBLES. 


arrival she had behaved in a way which could scarcely fail 
to prejudice Violet against her, and this consciousness ren- 
dered her for a time troubled and embarrassed under her 
relative’s good-natured effort towards acquaintance. 

Unfortunately, embarrassment with Mary took a form 
which caused her to appear stiff and unresponsive. She 
was constantly haunted by the idea that she, a grown 
woman, had no right to settle down in idle content upon 
the bounty of another woman. Worried, too, by fear that 
she must be awkward and provincial, liable at every turn 
to shock this elegant Violet, whom she saw courted by per- 
sons the very mention of whose names seemed to Mary like 
reading a romance. Mary did not mean the rich people or 
the people with grand titles who gladly bent at Miss Cam- 
eron’s feet, but the authors and painters and sculptors she 
had dreamed of — men who had won a position in the world 
by their genius — to find herself in the same room with 
whom caused the girl’s heart to thrill in that enthusiasm 
which is so charming at her age, laugh at it as cynically as 
we older critics may. 

And Mary had a great horror of being laughed at ; she 
would not for worlds have allowed anybody to know that 
a few days after her arrival in Florence she took advantage 
of Violet’s and Miss Bronson’s absence, and while Clarice 
supposed her tranquilly and correctly strolling about the 
garden, she had entered a cab, given the order “ Casa 
Guidi ” to the coachman, and driven away to worship the 
dwelling rendered sacred by having been fhe home of Eng- 
land’s greatest poetess. 

The coachman did not seem surprised that when they 
reached the house she sat still and stared up at the win- 
dows ; no doubt he had carried more than one young en- 
thusiast on a similar errand. He descended from his perch 
and leaned in at the carriage door, talking volubly, and 
though her limited knowledge of Italian prevented her un- 
derstanding all that he said, she did cojpprehend that he 
was speaking of Elisabetta Browninga and'Claiming her as 
nostra'*'^ with as much assurance as he would have done 
Michel Angelo, and she felt unlimited confidence in him at 
once. 

That confidence was a little shaken jn’esently. On gain- 
ing the street that led into the piazza where the Amaldi 
Palace stood, she motioned him to stop ; but when she ten- 


A GIRDS TROUBLES, 


193 


dered the legal fare he unblusliingly, though very insinua- 
tingly, demanded double the sum. Mary, in spite of her ro- 
mance, was a practical soul, and she had taken pains in ad- 
vance to ask Miss Bronson casually the price per hour ; and 
now, though frightened, she laid on the seat the correct 
amount, and informed the faithless man by a very expres- 
sive gesture that he could take it or leave it at his pleasure 
— she was not to be cheated. And he understood as plainly 
as if she had spoken in pure Tuscan, and liked her the bet- 
ter for her shrewdness, assisting her with elaborate courtesy 
to alight, and Ttalian-like, sending a benediction after her 
pretty face into the bargain. 

Mary felt guilty, but very happy, as she hurried through 
the square and entered the house, unperceived, as she fondly 
hoped. She might have been, so far as the ducal-looking 
porter was concerned, for he sat serenely dozing in the 
depths of his retreat ; but unfortunately the Argus-eyed 
Antonio, returning from his daily walk, crossed the street 
just as she stopped the carriage. Antonio gave one glance 
to assure himself that his wandering sight had not cheated 
him, then plunged into the shadow of a porte-cochhre^ and 
watched to see what she would do next. Hurrying home 
as fast as her feet would carry her ; but where had she 
been ? — that was the question ! Antonio’s heart sank be- 
neath a virtuous pang ! He had served in too many high 
and mighty families, and grown familiar with the ways 
that are dark ” of too many demoiselles of lofty descent, not 
to entertain certain suspicions in regard to her escapade, 
and indeed the only thing which astonished him was that 
he could have l^en sufficiently mistaken in this fawn-eyed 
American girl to feel any surprise. 

‘‘But she looked so innocent — she did indeed ; and to 
think of my being deluded by that !” Antonio thought. 
Then, a little to soften his feeling of humiliation, he added : 
“ After all, she is a woman ! Solomon himself was deceived 
to the last !” 

All day and all the evening did Antonio meditate over 
his discovery, and try for means to warn Miss Cameron 
that she ought to keep a sharp watch upon her cousin, with- 
out at the same time exposing the young lady’s delinquency; 
for, in spite of the belief forced upon him by experience, 
he hesitated to believe as ill of this innocent-looking crea- 
ture as his reflections warned him it was his duty to do. 

9 


194 


A 01BD8 TROUBLES, 


He bore his indecision and trouble with the exemplary 
patience which characterized him ; attended on the ladies 
at dinner ; even deprived himself of the solace of his club 
in order to have ample leisure to decide upon his line of 
conduct. But when his mistress came home from the opera 
and paused in the anteroom to speak a pleasant word to 
him, as was her wont, duty conquered. He must be just to 
his lady, even though he sacrificed the demoiselle with eyes 
like a fawn and tricks that would have been appropriate to 
some more feline-orbed animal. 

“ Signora !” he sighed, as Miss Cameron moved on. 
His voice sounded so doleful that Violet turned back, and 
as she glanced at him the mournful expression of his face, 
eloquent with sorrow and a determination to fulfill his duty 
at all costs, caused her to smile, supposing, from her knowl- 
edge of his character, that an infinitesimal dereliction on 
his own part, or that of some other member of the house- 
hold, occasioned this tragic demeanor. 

‘‘ What is it ?” she asked, laughing. “ Have you broken 
one of my china images, or has Clarice smiled at the new 
footman ?” 

And to excuse her lack of dignity, I must remind' the 
reader she had lived so long in France and Italy that she 
had forgotten it was indecorous to address a servant as a 
human being, even after years of such attachment as An- 
tonio had shown. 

Ah, mademoiselle, it is more serious than that,” re- 
plied Antonio, looking ready to cry. 

He told his story at last, with much circumlocution and 
all sorts of kindly efforts to soften the blow, and thus ren- 
dered his account enigmatical and appalling. Violet’s first 
impulse was to tell him a fib — say that she had been aware 
of the expedition. But she knew that such shallow subter- 
fuge could not deceive Antonio ; on the contrary, any at- 
tempt to screen the delinquent would only rouse darker 
suspicions in his mind, so she said gravely : 

‘‘ You were quite right to tell me, but you must not 
tliink my cousin had any secret to keep — she probably 
wanted to vi^fit one of the galleries or churches by herself. 
You know English and American girls, when they are new 
to the Continent, forget that many things, perfectly correct 
at home, are not permissible here.” 

Antonio caught eagerly at this possible excuse for the 


A GIRDS TROUBLES, 


195 


stranger, in favor of whom he had the prejudice any man, 
whatever his degree, has for a pretty face, and after 
begging mademoiselle to excuse his interference, and to 
beHeve that he was actuated by a strict sense of duty, he 
bowed himself out of the room. 

Violet felt it necessary to speak to Mary, and though 
she had not a shadow of doubt as to the entire innocence 
of the expedition, she dreaded rendering the task of making 
acquaintance with her cousin more difficult by assuming the 
character of judge or inquisitor. 

She gets on better with Miss Bronson,” thought 
Violet ; but if I set poor Eliza to arrange the matter, she 
will blunder, and cause Mary to believe me a regular 
Gorgon. Really, although I was a governess for so many 
years, I am afraid nature did not mean me to be a guardian 
of young ladies. I am quite at a loss what to do.” 

As soon as she had taken off her evening dress, and ha^ 
her heavy, masses of hair freed from their confinement and 
left to stray over her shoulders in a fashion which made 
her perfectly bewildering in her loveliness, she sent Clarice 
away, and sat down to meditate upon the wisest course of 
conduct — naturally, first pausing to cast a little blame on 
poor Antonio. 

‘‘If he hadn’t eyes all over his head, and wasn’t always 
in twenty places at once, he would not have seen her, and 
then there would be no difficulty,” she reflected impa- 
tiently. 

The doors which connected the rooms that comprised 
her suite of private apartments stood open, according to 
habit, a sense of space being one of the necessities of her 
nature. She began walking up and down — “prowling,” as 
Nina Magnoletti styled the performance, with that intimate 
knowledge of English, including even slang-phrases, which 
characterizes an educated Russian. 

As Violet paused in her march, and stood in her bed- 
chamber, she was startled by a sound like a stifled sob. 
Slie listened, and presently heard the noise more distinctly. 
Her fancy had not deceived her — it was a sob, and it came 
from her cousin’s room. 

She pushed back the thick curtains which hung over the 
arch, opened the door, and entered. A night-lamp burned 
dimly on a table ; by its light she could see Mary sitting 
up in bed, weeping as if her heart would break. 


190 


A Ginns TROUBLES. 


Whatever its cause, there was a real sorrow here, and 
Violet forgot everything in her desire to soothe it. 

“ Mary !” she said, moving quickly across the floor. 

Dear little cousin, what is the matter ? Don’t think we 
are strangers — remember that we are relatives — that I want 
to love you very much ! If you have any trouble, let me 
share it.” 

Oh, oh !” shivered Mary, in a fright at this sudden en- 
trance. But the touch of the caressing arms folded about 
her subdued the alarm, and presently she was able to answer 
Violet’s pleadings. “ It’s only that I’m a fool — no less. I 
have been ever since I got here. There is nothing else the 
matter. I am so sorry I wakened you ; I forgot that your 
bedroom was next. I didn’t mean to make a noise — indeed 
I did not.” 

“ Then I am glad you sobbed louder than you intended,” 
returned Violet, speaking playfully, in the hope of thus 
restoring her composure. 

“ You — you will hate me for disturbing you !” groaned 
Mary. 

“ Why, what a cross old thing you must think me !” 
said Violet, with good-natured raillery. 

“ No, no 1 You are so beautiful — and you seem so 
young ! Why, that’s part of it ! Every time I look at 
you, I am so ashamed of that contemptible little speech the 
day I came.” 

“ Part of what, dear ? Come now, don’t cry ! Let’s 
get at the bottom of the matter and understand each other, 
and be good friends. I often feel the need of a sensible 
little body to whom I can tell all my nonsensical feelings,” 
said Violet, inspired by a great sympathy for the poor girl 
as she remembered the troubles which had come so sud- 
denly upon her own girlhood ; conscious, too, that she had 
rather put Mary aside since her arrival, and remorseful 
from a fear that the child’s distress might rise out ‘of this 
very fact. 

“ Oh, I used to think I was sensible,” replied Mary, dry- 
ing her eyes with the sleeve of her night-gown, ‘‘but I 
have behaved so like an idiot ever since I came, that I 
begin to believe I must always have been one without 
knowing it.” 

“ The thing is not to find it out,” said Violet ; “ I’ve no 
doubt I have been a goose for a great deal longer than you 


A GIRVa TROUBLES. 


197 


are years old, but I prefer to remain innocent of the knowl- 
edge.” 

She laughed and made Mary laugh too, though in a 
somewhat tumultuous, nervous fashion. 

‘^Yoii are so good to me!” cried she. “And that 
makes me feel all the more guilty !” 

“ Good heavens, child, don’t say such things !” ex- 
claimed Violet, a little startled by the strong terra the girl 
employed, even while telling herself it had no significance 
— proceeded merely from the exaggeration of thought and 
language natural at eighteen. “Just tell me what you do 
mean ! Come, dear, this is quite the hour for confidence ; 
maybe you and I will not find in months so good an op- 
portunity for getting really acquainted and growing fond 
of each other, as we ought to be, since neither possesses 
another near relative in the world.” 

“ That is it too — just another part of it I” cried Mary, 
and the very assurance she appeared to have that her ex- 
clamation rendered her troubles clear, left the phrase still 
more mysterious and annoying. 

“ A part of what ?” demanded Violet, inclined to grow 
exasperated, as one is when self-convicted of having been 
impulsive, even “gushing,” to no purpose. But she con- 
trolled her impatience, and added, “Now begin at the 
beginning, as the children say when they are promised a 
story. I can’t answer as I ought if you talk in riddles.” 

“ Oh, I am so stupid !” replied Mary. 

Violet caught herself thinking rather cynically that 
doubtless some bit of girlish romantic folly lay at the bot- 
tom of this agitation — that really it required more patience 
than she possessed to fill well her role of elder cousin if 
such scenes were to occur frequently! Yes, yes ; some 
missish fancy and disappointment — some elegy over a dis- 
turbed dream as empty as it was poetical — these were the 
sorrows she must hear chanted. Could the hero be Lau- 
rence Aylmer ? She stopped short in her reflection, called 
herself a heartless, crabbed, envious old maid, and held 
Mary tighter in her embrace, determined not only to dis- 
play, but to feel sympathy, whatever the tidings which 
awaited her. 

“ A part of what, childie ?” she repeated, pressing her 
lips on Mary’s forehead. “ There ! I seldom kiss even Nina 
Magnoletti ; if that does not unlock your pretty mouth I 


198 


A GIRL'S TROUBLES. 


am at the end of my resources,” and was quite unaware 
wdiat absolute arrogance and complete faith in the potency 
of her own fascinations the sentence implied. 

‘‘Yes,” said Mary, speaking somewhat breathlessly ; 
“ ril tell you — I’d rather tell you ; I mightn’t get the cour- 
age again, and I should seem so ungrateful ! But I could 
not stay — indeed I could not, unless — unless we had it out,” 
she added, taking refuge in the expressive school-girl 
phrase, after trying in vain to substitute one more elegant. 
“If you really do blame him, it would be so mean of me to 
live on — on your bounty — and oh, I hate the idea, anyway I 
I am grown up ; I ought to take care of .myself — and then 
it seems more wicked than all the rest to think of that ! 
And oh, sometimes I wish I had been drowned coming 
over, and then there would have been an end of it all !” 

She pushed Violet almost harshly away, and buried her 
head in the pillow ; and Violet, certain now that she had to 
deal with some real sorrow, forgot her impatience, put 
aside every personal sensation in her longing to comfort 
this girlish sufferer, who looked like the phantom of her 
own early youth, moaning in the desolation which overtook 
it so unexpectedly, but which no human creature had pos- 
sessed the power or even the desire to console. 

Violet was too thoroughly versed in the ways of her 
sex to increase Mary’s agitation by petting or weeping 
with her, though, as a reversion from her recent cynical 
thoughts, she felt strongly inclined to lay her head down 
by Mary’s and sob too. For no reason, she took pains to 
assure her conscience, only because ashamed of her own 
hardness, and because the sight of tears always made any 
woman a little hysterical. Women were always wretched- 
ly weak creatures, she mentally added, with a misanthropy 
for which she would have soundly rated Nina Magnoletti, 
had she ventured to display it. 

“ Now you are such a sensible little body,” said Violet, 
calling herself to account as well as Mary, in this assurance, 
“ that I know you mean to sit up directly and tell me all 
about it ! Why should you think of going away ? My 
dear, your natural home is with me. Girls must have a 
home, however clever and brave they may be ; I krow that 
by experience.” 

“ Why, tliat’s the rest of it !” cried Mary, lifting her 
tear-stained face. 


A 0IRD8 TROUBLES. 


199 


‘‘Good!’’^ pronounced Violet. ‘^Now that we have 
arrived at the whole, in its entirety, as the newspapers say, 
try to make me understand what it is all about.” 

“She said it was through papa,” returned Mary, 
wdth an ominous sob, quickly checked. “He lost your 
money, and you had to go to teaching ! And oh ! if you 
think he did it on purpose — if you think he wasn’t honest, 
let me go away ! I’d rather starve than live with anybody 
who could believe ill of my father !” 

“ Ah, it is all clear !” exclaimed Violet, with an odd feel- 
ing of relief at discovering that Mary’s trouble related to 
her dead parent. “ Eliza Bronson has been talking to you. 
My poor Eliza ! she is the best soul in the world, and 
whatever she ought not to say is the very thing she always 
says. My dear, you must learn not to mind her talk ; if I 
did, a hundred times a day I should think myself a lost 
soul, both for this world and the next.” 

“You want to make me laugh — you want to turn it 
off !” cried Mary. “I’ll not let you — it is not kind ! If 
I am to speak out, you must also ! He did lose your money 
— she said so — but oh, if you think he was dishonest ” 

“ I have no harsh feeling towards your father, Mary,” 
Violet interrupted ; “ if I had, I should not have asked you 
to live in my house. I have the letters he wrote me ; you 
shall read them ; they will satisfy you ;” and she was care- 
ful to put no audible emphasis on the final pronoun, though 
she did internally. “ My father’s affairs were left in a bad 
state by his sudden death ; my cousin George did what he 
could ; you will see that by his letters. Now understand 
that I have no harsh feeling in my mind.” 

“ Oh, I knew nobody could blame papa who really was 
acquainted with him !” said Mary, then adding quickly, 
“ But you went to earn your living ; you did not stop de- 
pendent on him.” 

“ Your father was at that time in difBculties himself — 
he told me so,” Violet replied, giving that last clause a sig- 
nificance to her own mind w^hich did not reach Mary’s. 
“ He offered me a home — recollect that ! Come, do not 
make me say that I was headstrong and obstinate, in order 
to convince you that you would be wrong to rush out to 
battle with the world, when you can be guarded and taken 
care of — have love, too, if you will accept it.” 

“ Indeed I will !” cried Mary. “ I’m more ashamed 


200 


A Ollins TB0JJBLE8. 


than ever of myself — but I am glad it has all been said ! 
Oh, I have been so lonesome — tormented myself so !” 

“ My dear, perhaps I was wrong to leave you so much. 
I thought you would get on better first with Eliza, as you 
seemed a little shy with me. I forgot her unfortunate 
genius for blundering.” 

Oh, that is no matter now — don’t blame her !” said 
Mary. And it was my fault that you left me to her. 
Oh, I have been so ashamed ; I don’t know what ailed me 
the day I got here. Why, I made a regular prickly pear of 
myself !” 

“Let us say a moss rose-bud, very imperfectly devel- 
oped,” laughed Violet, glad so easily to have set the girl’s 
mind at rest. “But you understand that I did not mean 
to be selfish. As your mourning prevents your going into 
society, I thought Eliza would take you about to the galle- 
ries, and see after Italian lessons and music, if you 
liked it.” 

“ Oh, she is very good,” sighed Mary. “ I am so 
wicked ! Now, I love music, but I can’t bear to study the 
piano, and she was so hurt when I said it. And she wants 
me to write long letters to nobody, to improve my style. 
And, oh, Violet, it seems sacrilege to hear her talk in the 
galleries ! She won’t let me admire anything unless the 
guide-book says I shall, and she drives me quite frantic ! 
I am so bad !” 

“ So am I — be consoled,” returned Violet. “ Come, you 
shan’t be given over to her tender mercies ! You see, you 
are such a prim, proper little thing, that I never dreamed 
of your showing your relationship to me by having an ill- 
regulated mind.” 

“ Oh, I shall never be like you !” said Mary. “And she 
says — Miss Bronson says — it is immodest to draw from 
casts, and that is the only thing I care for ; and I hoped 
sometime, perhaps, I could be a sculptor — other women 
have. Oh, don’t think I’m a fool ! And when she saw, by 
accident, a little figure I had tried to do, she cried and 
wrung her hands, and begged me never to let anybody 
dream that I had any such talent ; she said it "was so 
unladylike.” 

“ My good Eliza ! Well, well, I am neither good nor 
ladylike, according to her ideas ! To-morrow we will look 
at that figure.” 


A Q1RV8 TROUBLES, 


201 


** Oh, I broke it !” interrupted Mary — I did ! . She 
thought I was penitent, but I was angry — and I oughtn’t 
to have been. You can see how horrid I am i” 

Here was her commonplace little charge turning out an 
embryo artist, with aspirations and longings ; well, Violet 
liked that better than the prosaic conception of her own to 
which she had given the girl’s name. They conversed for 
a long time, and Mary had completely recovered her peace 
of mind before Violet remembered Antonio’s revelation, 
and then it was difficult to speak, but she did, and found 
relief in Mary’s confession. 

“ I am so glad to find you are a romantic puss,” said she. 
‘‘I felt quite afraid of you, you seemed so superior.” 

‘‘ Oh ! And I thought you would consider me an 
idiot !” 

‘‘My dear, I once walked ten miles to sit on a stone 
where they said Washington Irving used to sit. There, now 
you perceive that where what Eliza would call folly, is con- 
cerned, I can sympathize to any extent.” 

They might have talked on, oblivious of the lapse of 
time — Mary entranced, Violet feeling more and more as if 
she were holding communion with that dreamy phantom of 
her girlhood — but they were disturbed by a sudden loud 
knocking on the w^all in Miss Bronson’s bedroom. 

“ Oh, good gracious !” exclaimed Violet, “ we have 
wakened her ; oh, shan’t we catch it ! I feel as if we were 
both in a boarding-school, and had just been surprised in 
flagrante delictu by the lady-abbess.” 

“ She’s coming — I hear her !” whispered Mary, choking 
with laughter. 

The corridor-door opened, and the spinster appeared 
on the threshold, looking about ten feet high in a loose flan- 
nel dressing-gown, with a row of curl-papers sticking out 
like miniature horns along her forehead. She carried 
a candle in her hand, which she held aloft, regarding the 
pair with great severity. 

“ Is either of you ill ?” she asked. 

“ No, no,” said Violet ; “ we got to talking and didn’t 
remember how late it was.” 

“And we are so sorry to have disturbed you !” added 
Mary. 

“ That is of no consequence, though of course now I 
must lie awake the rest of the night,” returned Miss Bron- 

git 


203 


BEFOBE THE POPE ^8 POBTBAIT. 


son ; but it is important to keep regular hours at Mary 
Danvers’s age. Violet, I am surprised at your forgetting 
the fact.” 

I’m a miserable sinner ; I’ll never do it again — please 
don’t scold !” 

I hope I never scold,” said the spinster, in an injured 

tone. 

Oh, Eliza, you do look so funny !” cried Violet, giving 
way to her laughter, in which Mary joined. 

Miss Bronson read them a long lecture on their present 
iniquity and the general misconduct of their lives, then con- 
sented to be appeased, and was made to laugh too, and forgot 
to drive them to bed for a full half hour afterward. 


• CHAPTER XXL 

BEFORE THE POPE’S PORTRAIT. 

O, sooner than could have been expected from 
the unpromising aspect of affairs on her arrival, 
Mary Danvers found her own particular niche 
in her cousin’s home — fitted into it so perfectly 
that she was at ease herself and a pleasure and 
satiwsfaction to Violet and her household. 

Miss Bronson w^as highly elated at the good understand- 
ing between the two, and expressed her sentiments with a 
delicious blunder-headedness which, in the case of many 
women, would have served to alienate the two relatives for- 
ever. 

I told you how sweet she was ; I begged you to have 
patience and study her. I am glad that I have convinced 
you at last !” she would say to Violet. 

. ‘‘ My dear, you had only one grave fault in my eyes — I 
thought you did not quite — quite do justice to your incom- 
parable cousin !” was her reproachful plaint to Mary. 

Now in order fully to appreciate the situation, it must be 
understood that she uttered these remarks when both ladies 
w^ere in the room ; calling first one, then the other, under 
transparent pretexts of asking advice concerning her 



BEFORE THE POPE^S PORTRAIT 


203 


worsted-work, or to read aloud some passage from a book, 
and framing her jubilant sentences in a tone perfectly 
audible to whichever of the pair she supposed in delightful 
ignorance of her words. 

Yiolet and Mary laughed heartily in private over her 
manias, and the fact of sharing a secret subject of amuse- 
ment brought them still closer together, as such confidences 
always do people who have a keen sense of the ludicrous ; 
and that quality Mary Danvers proved, to Violet’s satis- 
faction, to possess in a high state of development, in spite 
of her demure ways. 

And Yiolet, influenced by complex motives, as people 
usually are in their conduct, gave a great deal of time to 
her young cousin’s society ; partly because she was attracted 
towards the girl now that she found what an impetuous, 
aspiring soul lived under that restrained exterior, partly 
out of kindness, in order that the child might not again 
feel lonely and desolate ; and a little from her spoiled 
princess gratification in a ne^y plaything. But she re- 
mained unconscious that this latter reason existed, and it is 
only justice to her to add that she would have been heartily 
ashamed of her own pettiness had she discovered the fact. 

She spent a great many mornings in going about to the 
galleries with her charge, refusing engagements, and deny- 
ing herself to friends in order to do this, and was amply 
repaid for any slight sacrifice of pleasure by Mary’s enthu- 
siastic delight, which, her fears once removed, she dis- 
played to Violet as freely as if she had been thinking aloud. 

The more she became acquainted with the girl the more 
genuine grew Violet’s liking, and her impulsiveness — that 
long and uselessly-combated weakness of her nature — 
helped to render her admiring, because she recollected with 
a somewhat exaggerated self-reproach, that at first she had 
been inclined to underrate her relation. 

The very discrepancies in Mary’s character interested, 
even pieced her. The girl had led a life of singular 
repression between the two antagonistic influences — her 
father’s and stepmother’s — under which she had grown up. 
Violet, in her fanciful way, used secretly to compare her to 
a wild flower early transplanted into a garden and taught to 
grow primly and according to rule, taking so kindly to the 
training that it learned to stand erect and well-regulated, 
only showing here and there, if one examined closely, cer- 


204 


BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 


tain tendrils beneath its leaves stretching out to the right 
and left in a discursive fashion, which gave signs of the 
adventurous spirit it would have possessed had it been left 
free to follow the dictates of nature. 

Mary would not in the least have answered for a mod- 
ern girl-heroine, according to the type presented in auto- 
biographical novels written by the women of our day. 
These heroines are always blowsy, not to say dirty ; great 
stress is laid upon the fact that their dresses are invariably 
crumpled and torn, their shoes down at the heel, and their 
hair in a state of disorder which defies description. These 
heroines never ‘‘ weep ” as those of old-fashioned romances 
did ; they never cry as girls do in real life — they “ blub- 
ber they never laugh either — they “ yell they never 
kiss their fathers, they give the governor a resounding 
smack on each side his dear old ugly face, which knocks 
his hat off and when the unexpected appearance of their 
lovers causes them any emotion, it is not what the anti- 
quated novelists would have called “a thrill of blissful 
confusion,” nor what we should term in ordinary parlance a 
natural embarrassment, it is a red-hot sensation from 
head to foot, which makes their backs tingle as if somebody 
had applied a hissing flat-iron to the tenderest spot in their 
spinal marrow.” 

She was, in fact, a lady, a gentlewoman in thought and 
action, such as we happily find numerous examples of in 
real life, though, if we were to trust to the veracity of 
those aforementioned modern heroines, who relate the 
story of their youth in language as startling as the senti- 
ments, principles, and adventures which it portrays, we 
should believe the species had utterly disappeared from 
among the human race. 

Faults enough she certainly had — the faults of her age ; 
hasty temper, bursts of impatience, a yielding to impulse, 
thereby cracking the fine varnish of conventional breeding 
in a way which older people learn to avoid — but she was a 
lady. 

She had not been fostered into precociously becoming 
a woman in feelings and views of life ; she was exactly 
what she ought to have been at her years — a girl, and a 
healthy, pure-minded girl, with all the charms and asperi- 
ties which belong to that season. 

Violet’s laughing comparison was perhaps the best that 


BEFORE THE POPE ^8 PORTRAIT. 


205 


could have been applied — a moss rosebud a little too well 
enveloped ; still, for those who had eyes to see, the tender 
bloom which heralded the perfection of the flower was dis- 
tinctly visible. 

And Violet enjoye^d her companionship, as imaginative 
people past their youth do enjoy the society of what is 
young and fresh, provided those people are free enough 
from envy and jealousy — though of coarse hiding their real 
sentiments from themselves under reproaches directed 
towards the frivolousness, ignorance and presumption of 
adolescence — to be able to appreciate it. 

Her friends began to grumble at what they termed her 
neglect of obvious duty — namely, attention to themselves 
— since the arrival of the cousin to whom she was deter- 
mined to prove that she had fallen into thoroughly sym- 
pathetic guardianship — and the first and loudest among 
these grumblers were Nina Magnoletti and Mr. Aylmer. 

‘‘ One never sees you lately,” that gentleman said one 
night when he met her at Lady Harcourt’s. 

‘‘Just what I have been telling her,” cried Nina. “It 
is positively shameful !” 

“ It strikes me that I saw you both last evening — twice 
even — once at the opera, and afterwards at the Morelli’s,” 
returned Violet. “ My memory is better than yours. See- 
ing me makes so little impression on your minds that you 
forget the fact within twenty-four hours.” 

“ Of course she would manage in some way to twist our 
reproaches so as to put us in the wrong, Mr. Aylmer,” said 
Nina. 

“ And she knows very well what we meant,” rejoined 
be. “ Her doors are hermetically sealed ! Now and then 
she appears late in the evening at somebody’s reception or 
ball — flashes past one like a meteor, and is gone.” 

“ I think that is blank verse,” retorted Violet, “ and 
everybody knows that poetry is not truth.” 

“ What an awful heresy. Miss Cameron !” 

“And only uttered to avoid telling the truth herself,” 
said Nina. “ Now, misguided young woman, I insist on 
knowing where all your mornings have been spent for the 
last week ? I have called, heaven knows how many times, 
af your house, and the answer was always the same — out, 
and nobody had an idea where ! To say the least, such 
conduct is very mysterious, and Florence does not permit 


206 


BEFORE THE POPE'S PORTRAIT. 


mysteries. People may be as wicked as they like, but the} 
must not make a secret of their peccadilloes.” 

If either of you ever visited a picture-gallery, or any 
other place improving to the mind, you might have found 
me,” said Violet. 

I flatter myself that my dwelling comes within that 
catalogue, and you certainly have not been seen there,” 
returned Nina. 

‘‘Well, if you had called it a museum of unnatural 
curiosities, considering the people you and Carlo get about 
you, I might have agreed with your remark,” said Violet. 

“ And as I go there almost daily, permit me to thank 
you. Miss Cameron, for my share in the compliment,” cried 
Aylmer. 

“ She is hopelessly hardened in her sins,” sighed Nina. 
“It is all the fault of that wretched little new cousin — I 
hate her !” 

“ That’s because she is pretty,” said Violet. 

“The same reason would not apply to Mr. Aylmer, since 
he is a man,” replied Nina, “and he hates her too.” 

Aylmer laughed. Was his laughter slightly con- 
strained, or did Violet only fancy so ? 

“ Why don’t you leave your Bronson to show her the 
sights ?” pursued Nina. “ She is a walking encyclopedia of 
knowledge, and her society might be of service to the 
child, while you are as ignorant as the rest of us, and can 
be of no benefit whatever to her mind ! I wish she had 
stayed in her native wilds, or been drowned in crossing the 
ocean, if she is to usurp your attention in this way.” 

So it came about that only the next day, as Violet and 
Mary were standing in the Apollo salon of the Pitti Gallery, 
Violet perceived Laurence Aylmer in one of the smaller 
rooms opposite, conversing with a gentleman. She made 
another discovery at the same instant — it was that Mary 
saw him, too, turned, and became absorbed in Raphael’s 
portrait of Leo X., with dark, inscrutable-eyed Cardinal 
Medici standing beside the pope. But she did not move 
quickly enough, for Violet caught the sudden color which 
bloomed like sweetbriar blossoms into her usually rather pale 
cheeks. 

The two men were standing with their backs towards 
the ladies. Violet’s first impulse was to turn away as 
Mary had done, but she checked it. She did not 


BEFORE THE FOPE^S PORTRAIT. 


207 


choose to be flattered, missish, silly ; she would not stir. 
She had time to think this and many other things in rapid 
succession ; uppermost rushed the thought born in her 
mind the day of Mary’s arrival — the girl loved Laurence 
Aylmer ! And he would love Mary. His fancy for Violet 
Cameron would fade speedily, as it ought — for Violet, past 
her youth — Violet, who had no business with dreams such 
as were fitting at her cousin’s age ! Why, presently she 
should be ancient, wrinkled, withered — old maid that she 
was ! Of course Aylmer would turn to this opening bud, 
which possessed the charm of promise that the already 
fading rose had lost. 

And Mary loved him ! Here was an additional reason 
why she, Violet, should prove incapable of the preposter- 
ous folly of caring for a man younger than herself. His 
caprice would not last ! No man could love (no, she meant 
admire — lose his head over — some term that expressed folly 
or temporary aberration of intellect, was the most appli- 
cable !) for any length of time, a woman so many years 
his senior ! And Mary loved him, and Mary should have 
her happiness ! 

No doubt, when he met the girl in America, Aylmer had 
been attracted towards her, but was unaware of the im- 
pression he had made. Violet would not admit the possi- 
bility of his being a trifler — capable of wittingly gaining 
the innocent creature’s heart and flinging it carelessly aside 
— no, no ! 

Circumstances had abruptly called him away before 
he learned the ti*uth ; here, in Europe, he had encountered 
this Violet Cameron, and had conceived for her one of 
those brief infatuations such as his sex will in similar case 
— the wisest and best men being weak creatures ! But 
the delusion must die out rapidly, now that fate had again 
flung Mary in his path. He would quickly learn the differ- 
ence between illusion and reality — fancy and affection ! 
Why once, as a compliment to the girl (long ago — oh, that 
first night at Nina’s house !) he had said that she reminded 
him of Miss Cameron. Ah, he would discover that the 
compliment had been to Violet herself in suggesting that 
she retained sufficient signs of youth to L ave any trace of 
resemblance between her and this child, whose face was 
holy as dawn, with waking hopes and dreams. 

But Aylmer and his companion had caught sight of the 


208 


BEFORE THE POPE^S PORTRAIT. 


pair, and as they approached, Violet perceived that the 
latter gentleman was well known to her ; a young artist 
who had not been in Florence since her return — a great 
favorite with her, too. 

Seeing him gave her a reason for greeting Aylmer rather 
briefly, and hastening to welcome the new-comer. 

“ Why, Gilbert Warner !” she exclaimed. “What an 
unexpected pleasure ! How very glad I am to see you ! I 
thought you had vanished forever. Where have you been — 
to the Antipodes ?” 

“ Only to America,” he answered, shaking her hand 
with unfashionable fervor, excusable, since he was a painter, 
not a dandy. 

But while Violet poured forth a torrent of questions and 
ejaculations with an animation less pardonable than his 
warmth, since she ranked among the order of fine ladies, 
and so ought to have been incapable of enthusiasm, she was 
not so absorbed but what she could observe the meeting 
between Mary and Aylmer. 

“ Are you so lost in admiration of that wicked pope that 
one may not even say good-morning ?” he asked. 

She turned and gave him her hand, but her laugh sounded 
nervous ; and Violet, strong in her determination to be of 
service, would not leave the girl to betray her confusion. 

“ Mary,” she called, “ let me present my friend Mr. 
Warner ” 

“ I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Danvers,” 
broke in that gentleman, quickly ; “ we were fellow-pas- 
sengers across the ocean. I trust she has not forgotten 
me !” 

He hurried up to Mary, and Violet gave her another 
rapid glance, wondering if by any possibility she had been 
mistaken as to the person who had caused the girl’s little 
agitation. 

No ; it was not Gilbert Warner. Mary held out her 
hand to him with exemplary composure — answered his 
greetings as calmly as even Eliza Bronson could have con- 
sidered fitting for the manner of a young lady ; and so far 
from coloring, looked almost pale again — else the contrast 
to that recent vivid flush made her appear so. 

Then, as was her duty. Miss Cameron took the adjusting 
of matters into her own control. She began to talk, and 
kept the conversation general for a few minutes. They all 


BEFORE THE POPE '‘8 PORTRAIT. 


209 


walked on to look at the pictures in the farther rooms, and 
Violet, with her woman’s quickness, perceived that Mary 
(involuntarily, Violet did her the justice to think,) half 
turned from the artist, as if to claim Aylmer’s companion- 
ship. 

So it should be, Violet decided, and she addressed some 
remark to Warner which brought him to her side ; she de- 
tained him there, as they strolled along, leaving the other 
pair to follow. 

When Miss Cameron announced that it was time for 
her and Mary to go, the gentlemen accompanied them 
down stairs. 

Remember, I shall expect to see you immediately, you 
runaway !” Violet said to Warner, in that gracefully auto- 
cratic fashion of hers, which men found so irresistible. ‘‘ I 
shall come very soon for a peep at your new sketches ; but 
recollect, no pretense of work will serve as an excuse for 
neglecting me !” 

Warner persuaded her to set the next day for visiting 
his studio with her cousin ; then Aylmer claimed her 
attention, and Violet had not time to notice that the 
painter looked at Mary with as much gratitude as if the 
promise had come from her ; but Mary was busy extricat- 
ing a bow of her cousin’s dress which had caught in the 
carriage-door, and did not raise her eyes. 

The two men stood watching the landau as it rolled 
down the descent in front of the palace, and Warner 
said : 

“ Upon my word, Miss Cameron is more beautiful than 
ever. She ought to have been Empress of all the Russias. 
Yet, though she shows so plainly that she is accustomed to 
have the w’hole world on its knees when she passes, she is 
as natural and unaffected as a child.” 

Aylmer’s first thought was that which always enters the 
masculine mind when another man ventures to praise the 
special object of the listener’s admiration — “ Like your im- 
pudence indeed !” — and his next to feel his heart warm 
suddenly towards his friend, because he had eyes and 
brains to appreciate his deity’s loveliness. 

“ I am awfully glad you have come back to Florence, 
Warner,” cried he, enthusiastically and irrelevantly. “ I 
was thinking about you the other day, and hoping you 
would get here before the winter ended.” 


210 


BEFOBE THE POPE\S POBTBAIT. 


And, as the carriage passed down the narrow street 
towards the Ponte Vecchio, Violet said : 

Such a charming man, and so good ! You know him 
already.” 

“ Why — yes — oh, you mean Mr. Warner?” said Mary, 
coming out of a reverie with another blush, which faded 
too quickly as she went on to speak of him for any proba- 
bility that it or the start with which she roused herself to 
answer had the slightest connection with his name. ‘‘ Yes ; 
he is a relative of Mrs. Forrester’s. He came to see us 
very often in New York before we sailed, and was very 
kind and good-natured during the voyage.” 

And you never remembered to speak of him, you un- 
grateful puss !” 

We have had so much to talk about, I’ve had no time 
to recollect my journey ; and you did not speak of him 
either,” said Mary. 

The carriage had reached that quaintest of medisBval 
bridges, and Mary became too busy regarding the odd little 
shops to have further leisure to bestow on Mr. Warner ; as 
for Laurence Aylmer, his name found no mention from 
either of the ladies during their homeward drive. 

They talked a great deal, however, and Mary was made 
happy by a decision that she should be allowed to pursue 
her inclinations. An old sculptor of Violet’s acquaintance 
had promised to let Mary enter his studio and have the 
benefit of his counsels ; but it was agreed between the 
cousins that at present she must not allow her love for the 
plastic art to interfere with other studies. She should go 
to the studio a certain number of times each week, and 
work a certain number of hours. As Mr. Vaughton’s 
atelier was on the same floor as his dwelling, and he had a 
good-natured sister, who would be only too glad to play 
chaperon to the young girl, there existed no necessity for 
troubling Miss Bronson. 

I wash m}^ hands of the whole business,” Eliza said, 
when later she heard the affair discussed ; and as she spoke 
she rubbed them violently with her pocket-handkerchief, as 
if the lavatory process were already finished, and she wip- 
ing away any last traces of responsibility which might still 
linger. I disapprove, but I remain silent. Water colors 
in moderation, if young ladies please ; though, to my 
mind, they are sticky things, and ruinous to one’s dress — 


BEFORE THE POPE^S PORTRAIT. 


211 


but sculpture ! "No, Violet, I cannot help wondering at 
your encouraging the child in a fancy which is positively 
unnatural — yes, I must say it — almost depraved !” 

By this time Mary knew Miss Bronson too well to feel 
either frightened or hurt, and the professor, who chanced 
to be present when the news of Mary’s intentions was 
broken to the spinster, highly enjoyed her dismay. 

‘‘You must do nothing by halves, Miss Mary,” he said. 
“A thing worth doing at all is worth doing thoroughly.” 

“ And an improper thing touched ever so lightly is still 
improper,” cried Eliza, bridling, as she always did when 
she felt that she had uttered some emphatic truth. 

“ Half the people who call themselves sculptors know 
about as much of the human frame as — as our dear friend 
Miss Bronson does of those hypothetical human souls she 
likes to dream of.” 

“ Professor !” said Eliza, in mingled pain and wrath, 
at least spare that young girl those evil theories ! Do 
not add to your sins by essaying to contaminate her youth- 
ful spirit.” 

“ No, no ; I had something else in my mind,” returned 
the professor, with a chuckle. “ Fraulein Violet, little 
Miss Mary must study anatomy. I shall give her lessons 
myself, if you permit, and she will accept me as teacher.” 

For a moment Eliza sat speechless, staring open- 
mouthed, straight before her, so Mary had an opportunity 
to say : 

“ Oh, how kind you are ! Do thank him, Violet !” 

“ My dear, your face is doing that better than I can,” 
said/ Violet, laughing in advance at the scene which she 
knew Eliza was about to make ; which the professor him- 
self awaited with gleeful impatience. 

“We . will begin to-morrow. Miss Mary!” cried he. 
“ Now the bones of the ” 

“ One instant,” gasped Eliza ; “ one instant.” 

“ Certainly,” said the professor, with elaborate polite- 
ness. 

“ I desire to ask you a single question, Violet,” pursued 
Eliza, in a voice at once tremulous and dignified. “Do 
you mean to allow this contamination of a youthful female 
mind, committed to your charge, to be carried into effect ?” 

“I am afraid I must. You know how obstinate the pro* 


212 


A BOLD STROKE. 


fessor is — he always will have his way,” said Violet, with 
mock sadness. 

‘‘ And now about the bones — if I do not interrupt Miss 
Bronson,” continued the professor, with a profound bow 
towards the outraged spinster ; the bones of ” 

^‘Mary Danvers !” brokc-in Eliza. 

Hers, if you like,” said the professor, as good an ex- 
ample as another.” 

Peace !” cried Eliza. Mary, I appeal to you ! 1 

urge you in the name of ” 

‘‘ Too late !” interrupted the professor, in his turn 
The lesson has begun. Now only listen. Miss Bronson^ 
This is a fact which will interest you !” 

“ Violet, you must excuse me if I withdraw,” said Eliza, 
rising. 

“ Only just listen to this,” urged the professor. The 
bones ” 

‘‘Sir,” exclaimed Eliza, “from this moment we are 
strangers, remember that — remember, too, my final words. 
There is an unpardonable sin — I believe you have reached 
it at last. After that, we are taught that judgment comes 
speedily and tarrieth not ! If you cannot tremble, at least 
I trust these misguided creatures whom you are leading 
astray may be granted grace enough to do so.” 

And Eliza swept from the room with a demeanor that 
was a happy mingling of stateliness worthy Queen Kathe- 
rine, and a saintly resignation which would have enabled 
her to pose as a model for a picture of Alexandria’s mar- 
tyred virgin. 


CHAPTER XXn. 

A BOLD STROKE. 

HE next day, while the cousins and Miss Bronson 
were seated at breakfast (one must call it so, in 
accordance with continental customs, though 
serv^ed at noon), Violet said : 

“Mary, we promised to go to Gilbert War- 
ner’s studio at one o’clock. He is in the same building as 



A BOLD STROKE. 


213 


Mr. Vaughton, so we shall ^ kill two birds with one stone.’ 
1 beg your pardon, Eliza. I know proverbs are vulgar, but 
don’t look so shocked.” 

‘‘I was not thinking of the proverb,” returned. the spin- 
ster mournfully, as she laid down her knife and fork with 
the air of a person wdiose appetite has been effectually de- 
stroyed by some untoward remark. ^‘It is this scheme oP 
Mary’s ” 

“My dear, that is settled, and discussion could only 
make Mary uncomfortable,” Violet interrupted, good-na- 
turedly, but firmly. “ Console yourself by remembering 
that talents are gifts, not matters of choice. If Mary has 
talent as a sculptor, it would be as wrong for us to attempt 
to interfere with its cultivation, as for her to neglect her 
powers.” 

“ I have no more to say,” Eliza answered. “ I have 
borne my testimony — my responsibility ends there.” 

The cousins had much ado not to smile, and Violet 
changed the conversation ; but Miss Bronson remained 
pensive and injured, refusing even to eat apricot-marma- 
lade — her favorite sv/eetmeai. 

“ Will you go with us, Eliza, and see Mr. Warner’s 
new sketches ?” Violet asked, as they rose from the 
table. 

“Not to-day, if you will excuse me. Your real errand 
is to Mr. Vaughton ; I could not answer to my conscience 
if by my presence I seemed tacitly to admit approval,” 
Miss Bronson replied, and she regarded the pair with min- 
gled regret and condemnation. 

So the cousins drove away alone, laughing a little 
between themselves at poor Eliza’s scruples. They were 
received by the young painter with a delight which he 
took no pains to conceal. After a brief conversation, while 
he showed Miss Cameron the sketches he had taken during 
his absence, Mary, who knew most of them by heart, 
strolled about, regarding the collection of valuable curiosi- 
ties and relics with which the studio abounded, for thougft 
not a rich man, Warner had already met with sufficient suc- 
cess in his profession to be able to indulge his artistic tastes 
in the furnishing of his atelier. 

Presently Laurence Aylmer made his appearance, and 
again Violet noticed in Mary that slight agitation which 
meeting him seemed always to produce. Gilbert Warner 


214 


A BOLD STROKE, 


ol served the change also, and a cloud came over his 
bright, genial face ; but it faded speedily when, a few 
moments later, he got Mary to himself under the pretext of 
showing her a rare old cabinet, while Violet and Aylmer 
were busy with the sketches. 

Then the cousins went to visit Miss V^jugliton, and 
arrange with her brother about the days on wliich Mary 
was to work, and from there they drove to Janetti’s brio- 
d-brac shop to inquire about a present which Violet had 
ordered from Paris for Miss Bronson, to take the place 
of her much-regretted china dog with the red caudal 
extremity. 

Miss Cameron left Mary standing near the door looking 
at a deliciou ly absurd porcelain mandarin squatted on a 
carpet, and walked to the farther end of the shop. Pres- 
ently Mary hurried up and caught her arm so quickly that 
Violet looked round in surprise. 

What is the matter she asked. Why, how you 
tremble 1” 

‘‘ That dreadful man — I was frightened !” returned 
Mary, still rather breathless. He saw me and came in — 
oh ! there he is !” 

Violet turned and saw Giulia’s Greek walking towards 
them ; he had been pointed out to her, and she had at once 
conceived a strong aversion to his handsome, feline face. 

‘‘ Do you mean him ? What is it ?” she asked. 

“ Oh, 1 didn’t want to tell,” said Mary, more com- 
posedly, “ but I had better. He was in the railway-carriage 
with me from Pistoja. He eyed me so and talked so that I 
was frightened, and he followed me through the station, 
offering to see me to an hotel. Oh ! that was what made 
me forget my trunks — and — behave so, you know !” 

The Greek was moving forward, his insolent eyes fixed 
on Mary. Violet stepped from behind a great vase that 
concealed her and took Mary’s arm. 

“ Come, my cousin,” she said aloud in French, and as they 
passed the Greek she looked full in his face with a menac- 
ing glance which there was no mistaking. 

The fellow stood dumbfoundered for an instant; he rec- 
ognized Miss Cameron, and knew that by his offensive gal- 
lantry to the pretty, unprotected girl in the railway-carriage, 
he had jeopardized his social standing in Florence. 

The cousins passed on, and he watched them with an 


A BOLD STBOKE. 


215 


evil glance. The scorn in Miss Cameron’s face did not 
touch him a whit, but he had been anxious to rank among 
her acquaintances, having already learned how important 
her favor would be ; and now there not only remained no 
possibility of that, but it was very probable she might 
cause her friends’ doors to be shut against him. 

He muttered a hearty curse, and to add to his wrath, some 
hasty movement of his arm knocked a Viennese china cup 
and saucer oif the counter, for the breaking of which he 
had to pay a hundred francs. lie could hate with the 
ferocit}^ of any other wild animal, and a fierce desire to 
avenge his mishaps upon Violet Cameron sprang up in his 
mind. 

As the carriage drove olf, Mary told her little story : 

“ I was alone in the compartment ; he got in at the last 
moment, else 1 should have changed. Oh, he was civil 
enough in what he said, but he frightened me. Luckily, at 
the next station but one, some ladies came in. I was 
ashamed to tell you. Girls have no business to meet with 
adventures. I feared you might blame me.” 

“ You know me better now, dear.” 

‘‘Yes, indeed ! But, oh, when I got out in the station, 

and he kept by me, and — and Well, I won’t think 

of it !” 

“ The wretched, panther-looking creature !” exclaimed 
Violet. ‘‘ He is fit to be Giulia da Rimini’s friend ! He 
was startled enough — he recognized me, and knows very 
well that I can punish him as he deserves.” 

“ Don’t tell anybody — not even Miss Bronson !” pleaded 
Mary. “ Oh, I should be ashamed ; promise, Violet !” 

She was so earnest, that Miss Cameron gave her word 
not to mention the occurrence. 

“Perhaps you are right,” she said ; “anyway, he is not 
worth the trouble of punishing. I shall simply refuse to 
allow him to be introduced to me, if he should venture to 
attempt it.” 

. But the Greek was careful not to expose himself to 
such risk. The days went on ; he perceived by the man 
ner in which Miss Cameron’s acquaintances treated him 
that she had not betrayed his conduct. They met several 
times at houses where the duchess had presented him, but 
he kept aloof from Violet’s vicinity. 

Indeed, it soon became evident that the Greek would 


316 


A BOLD STROKE, 


not be troublesome in a society-way, and that inclined the 
men of Giulia’s set to permit him more easily to glide into 
familiar acquaintance with themselves. Since he was con- 
tent with occasionally appearing at a reception or ball, they 
did not mind riding and driving with him, allowing him 
the entry of the club, or gaming and supping with him. 

The duchess’s house was the only one he visited regu- 
larly. She knew that he watched her — made himself cog- 
nizant of her habits, her engagements, her associates — but 
she had recovered wholly from her fright, had matured her 
plans, and enjoyed the situation. 

In a short time she perceived that she had gained a 
great advantage — the man had fallen in love with her ; at 
least the passion was what both she and the Greek would 
have dignified by the name. 

He displayed a strong jealousy of Laurence Aylmer, 
though Giulia considered that her subjugation of the 
American advanced very slowly. Could she have known 
the state of his mind, her belief that at least she was mak- 
ing progress would have been rudely dispelled. The 
duchess had become a positive burden. She employed 
most adroitly the terms upon which she had managed to 
place him by her unwelcome confidence ; she waylaid him 
on every possible occasion, sent for him to her house on 
plausible pretexts ; and Aylmer saw more clearly each day 
in what a troublesome position he was put. 

He still did not suppose that she desired to fascinate 
either his heart or fancy, but aside from the fact of her 
being the last woman towards whom he wished to act the 
part of sympathetic counselor, he feared, certain of Miss 
Cameron’s aversion towards her, that the appearance of 
intimacy which she began to parade whenever she could 
seize an opportunity, would injure iiim in the quarter where 
a favorable opinion was of more importance in his eyes 
than the verdict of the whole world. 

The duchess read that cherished secret clearly, but still 
without anger towards him. The struggle to gain a su- 
premacy only increased her determination, and she grew 
more and more confident that, besides gratifying her whim, 
it would afford her revenge against Violet Cameron, upon 
whom she concentrated the wrath which Aylmer’s insensi- 
bility aroused in her soul. If she could only subdue him, 
she should have no wish to prevent his marrying Violet i 


A BOLD STROKE, 


217 


nay, she should be glad, and before the honeymoon ended, 
the haughty creature should learn that she, Giulia, stood 
between her and her husband. Naturally the duchess’s 
vanity assured her that, once acquired, she could keep such 
hold, and her experience of men had not* taught her to 
think any member of the sex likely to be much fettered by 
the marriage vow. . 

Carlo Magnoletti’s conduct had at length convinced her 
that her power over him was completely lost, and she hated 
him almost as deeply as she did Miss Cameron. And Nina, 
who, under the guise of friendliness, never met her with- 
out showing in face and words that she exulted over her ! 
actually daring to sting with vailed allusions and honeyed 
speeches — she, who a few months before had been afraid to 
offend, lest Giulia should punish her through Carlo ! 

And everything was Violet Cameron’s fault ! Her re- 
venge ! Oh, she would have it, and it should include the 
trio ! She could wait ; she possessed the fortitude and 
nerve of a red Indian ; vengeance would taste the sweeter 
for this waiting — and it should come. 

But in spite of other occupations, she found time to 
watch the Greek as narrowly as he did her. He was losing 
his head — she saw’ that ; she would foil the duke with his 
own instrument — a second vengeance, exciting and pleasui’- 
able to her soul. 

At first, as Dimetri’s air of gallantry grew more pro- 
nounced, she feared he might be trying to fulfill his mission 
by fascinating her — putting her in an equivocal position 
towards himself, which w^ould afford the duke his wished- 
for proofs. But she was not afraid ; even if that were his 
object she could baffle him, aye, and yet yield to the caprice 
which her affection for Aylmer did not prevent her in- 
dulging. 

But the Greek’s passion was no simulated matter ; her 
experienced eyes soon discovered this by signs which the 
wariest and most astute man could not have feigned, and 
the knowledge rendered her task much easier. True, she 
never doubted that he would betray her just the same, un- 
less she could make it for his interest to join her side — 
pecuniarily his interest, she meant ; she could imagine none 
so potent — and she thought she could manage to do that ; 
do it without putting her hand in her own purse, a meager 
one this season, from her losses at cards : and she knew only 
10 


21S 


A BOLD STROKE. 


too well that she had exhausted the resources of borrowing 
in every quarter o}3en to her, under every possible pretext, 
from that of wanting money for charity, to pretending that 
she had been robbed of sums intrusted to her care, and if 
left unaided must suffer disgrace as lasting as it would be 
merited. 

The Greek had been barely a fortnight in Florence be- 
fore Giulia saw her way clear towards managing him, and 
with his assistance to carry out her plans for punishing 
Carlo and his wife, and dealing a first blow at Violet Cam- 
eron through her affection for them. 

She must throw off disguises to a certain extent, 
but she always deceived most successfully when she was 
not only in appearance but in reality frank, so far as a por- 
tion of her motives went. He had hitherto treated her 
with an affectation of respect which could be notliing but 
mockery from a confidant of the duke’s, for the duke was 
one of the few people who knew her thoroughly. She had 
appeared unsuspicious of the man’s being Da Rimini’s spy, 
had refrained from a single harsh word against her husband, 
and given Dimetri the footing of a friend because of the 
source from whence he came. And now she learned some- 
thing in regard to him which she could turn to use. A 
Sicilian who had formerly been the duke’s courier passed 
through Florence, and came to pay his respects ; he saw the 
Greek, and recognized him. They had been in San Fran- 
cisco at the same time, amd Mass! knew that there Dimetri 
had met with a misfortune. In Paris and Vienna, though 
well known as a gamester, he was not suspected of being a 
cheat, but in California he had once been found out. How- 
ever, he shot the discoverer across the card-table. 

This was all Giulia wanted, not to employ as a threat — 
she did not wish him to suspect her knowledge ; but now 
she saw how completely she could depend upon his aid. 
So many men who would stop at nothing else absolutely 
refused to cheat at cards — from dread of exposure, Giulia 
supposed, not because there could be any vice from 
which human beings would recoil. Massi only waited over 
a single train, so there was no danger of his betraying 
the Greek to anybody besides herself, and indeed he would 
in any case have been silent at her request. 

The next morning the Greek presented himself, as had 
grown his daily habit, and found her seated in her dingily- 


A BOLD BTROKE, 


219 


magnificent boudoir, lookiug like one’s ideal of a mediaeval 
Boiceresa, in her black-and-gold-wrought amber draperies. 
She had a fondness for embroidery, and her skill in the art 
was marvelous. As he entered she was occupied with her 
favorite work. She set the frame on the table beside her 
and held out her hand, saying : 

You have come precisely at the right moment. Please 
be useful, and hold this skein of silk.” 

He bent laughingly on one knee as she threw the scarlet 
threads over his fingers, gazing up into her face with a 
passionate light in his wicked black eyes. 

‘‘ You are to look at the silk,” she said, with a smile — 
not coquettish, she was too stately for that word to apply — 
else you will tangle it hopelessly !” 

As you have done with my heart,” he answered, 
boldly. It was the first time he had spoken any words be- 
yond the gallantry which even idle fine ladies, who con- 
sider themselves strict, regard as quite permissible. ‘‘ You 
certainly are the most beautiful woman in the world ! 
It is for me to beg you not to look ; you make me 
dizzy !” 

‘‘ So that is part of your plan,” she said, smiling still. 

“ My plan ?” he echoed. ‘^I don’t understand.” 

‘‘ But I do,” she said. Signor Dimetri, how much did 
my husband promise to give you if you got him proofs 
that would obtain him a separation on his own terms?” 

The Greek started to his feet. 

‘‘ You insult me, madam !” he cried ; and, though his 
indignation might be acting, his astonishment to find him- 
self discovered was genuine enough. 

“ You are tangling my silk,” she said, softly. ‘‘Please 
to go down on your knees again. So — now we can talk 
quietly.” 

“ Great heavens !” he exclaimed ; “ how could you 
speak to me like that ?” 

“ Becctuse I want to know,” she answered. “ I may be 
able to offer a better bargain than his.” 

“ You torture me !” he cried. “ You know your power 
over me, and use it — oh, shame, sharne, to wound me like 
this ! I had not spoken — if my eyes told my story it was 
not my fault — and you punish me with such words ! Am 
I to blame because I could not resist your witcheries, 
because I adore you ” 


220 


A BOLD STROKE. 


You may get up now ; the skein is wound,” she inter- 
rupted, in an unaltered voice. Then, as he sprang to his 
feet again, she continued : “So you have decided to make 
love to me yourself, since you find there is no other man 
whose folly or mine will help you to win your wages.” 

“ I cannot bear this !” he exclaimed, and hurried 
towards the door — looked back and added, “ I have been 
wrong — mad— but oh ! if you had any heart you would 
pity too much what I suffer to stab me with such a relent- 
less hand !” 

“ Come here,” she said, gently. 

He complied, crying out against her cruelty in eloquent 
phrases. 

“ I am a fool — a coward to obey,” he faltered. “Ah, 
say you did not mean it — say that you do not believe me 
false and vile !” 

“ Falsehood and truth are only words,” said the duchess. 
“ There is nothing so important as money ! The man is 
honest who wins his salary by thoroughly doing his work.” 

“ Again ! You call me back to outrage me anew !” 

“You are only wasting your opportunities. Signor 
Dimetri,” said she. “I am not angry. I admire your 
courage, but I am not a weak woman — I mean to turn my 
husband’s weapons against himself ! You love me, and I 
know it — he should have remembered that possibility when 
he sent you here.” 

“I do love you, but you cannot think ” 

“ Let us leave that part. You are too shrewd not to 
see that acting is useless with me.” 

“Yes — he did beg me — I own it. I refused ” 

“At least you will aid me instead of him, since you love 
me — if I can make it worth your while ?” 

“ Only a word, a hope, and 1 am your slave !” 

“ Don’t get on your knees, please. Sit there, opposite 
me — so. Look in my face ; study it well. If I lie, you 
are keen enough to discover it. You can’t earn your money, 
for the simple reason that I have no lover.” 

It was useless to peruse that inscrutable countenance, 
which expressed what she desired it to do, and nothing 
more. He began to speak, but stopped abruptly. 

“Say it,” she said calmly. “I shall not be offended.” 

“ There is a man whom you — you ” 

“ You mean I flirt with Laurence Aylmer ? I do. I 


A BOLD BTROKE. 


221 


would drive him mad if I could ; I will tell you why. The 
woman whom I hate the most of all created beings loves 
him — her name is Violet Cameron.” 

“ The American — curse her !” muttered Dimetri. 

‘‘She can know nothing of you. Are you afraid of her ? 
I remember now — you have never tried to be presented. 
What is the reason ?” 

“ I met a pretty girl in the train, and frightened her by 
talking a little nonsense ; she turned out that woman’s 
cousin,” he replied, and went on to relate Violet’s treatment 
of him. 

“ I am glad of it,” the duchess said quietly ; “ at least, 
you will be ready to help me where she is concerned.” 

“ And you hate her, because that Aylmer ” 

“ You had better let me explain my own motives,” she 
iKoke in ; “ you can believe me or not, as you please.” 

“ I know about her making you trouble with Magno- 
letti,” he said, devouring her with his passionate, hungry 
eyes. 

The duchess retained the most perfect composure ; she 
knew that one thing at a time is the golden rule for doing 
all things well. Just now business was the matter of mo- 
ment. 

“ He may be vexed if he likes,” she said, “ but he loves 
play too well not to come to my house, and he has about 
three hundred thousand francs ready money ; when he has 
lost that, he and his fool of a wife may go their way.” 

“ He is very lucky at cards ” 

“ Heavens, don’t I know it !” she interrupted coldly, im- 
patient as her words sounded. “ But two people playing 
against him — two people with nerve and courage enough not 
to stop for the scruples that cowards call honesty, could 
be more than a match for his luck.” 

She looked full in his face and smiled. He started up 
and caught her hand in both his. 

“ You are a wonderful woman !” he exclaimed. 

She drew her hand slowly away, still smiling in his eyes. 

“Would half that inheritance of Carlo’s overbalance 
Da Rimini’s offer ?” she asked. 

“ 1 will do anything — consent to anything— only say 
that you love me !” he cried. 

She rose and stood leaning her hand on the table ; any 
attitude she took always seemed the perfection of grace. 


223 


IN THE STUDIO. 


When Violet Cameron is punished — when the Magno- 
letti are reduced to such straits that Nina^s jewels are in 
pawn — you will at least have earned the right to tell me 
that you should prize such an avowal,” she answered. 
‘‘ Wait — let me finish ! I have shown you my plans freely ; 
I am not a coward ; I fear you as little as I do the duke ! 
Fight with me, and we conquer together ; fight against me 
— and trust the foresight of a woman who has held her own 
so far against foes, against personal inclinations, against 
Fate itself — you will go down among the vanquished !” 

‘‘ Oh, I believe it !” he exclaimed admiringly ; she 
seemed great in his eyes. “ Together — ah, together !” 

“ Then, till victory comes, you speak no such word as 
you have done to-day,” she said steadily ; ‘‘ if you do, you 
will never enter my doors again — I swear it ! The duke 
himself would tell you that in a case of this kind I never 
break my word.” 

She moved towards a door which led into her dressing- 
room, looking back at him over her shoulder. 

Ah, don’t go !” he cried eagerly ; ‘‘ don’t !” 

“ A rwederci — a domani she answered ; waved her 
hand with a slow, sad smile which sometimes gave a 
certain pathetic expression to her rather stern face, and 
passed out of his sight. 

The Greek stood for a few seconds lost in thought. 

‘‘ Da Bimini is an idiot — a beggarly twenty thousand, 
indeed ! What a woman — she would beat the devil him- 
self !” 

And he went his way. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

m THE STUDIO. 

ARY DANVERS began her labors in the old 
sculptor’s studio with the delight of a person 
who has found the work which is most con- 
genial, and her success equaled her enthusiastic 
industry. But she was too sensible and too 
conscientious to neglect her promise to Violet of not allow- 



IN THE STUDIO. 


225 


ing the occupation to prevent her attending to other 
duties. She studied Italian under a good master, and made 
rapid progress ; she was already well grounded in French, 
lacking only the facility in conversation which is a matter 
of practice, and wdiich she soon attained through the oppor- 
t unities afforded her. She found time to read a great deal 
also, though obliged to put by poetry and romances in 
a measure, and this at her age appeared a little hard. 

‘‘Never mind,” she said to Violet ; “when one has a 
good solid dinner every day, it would be silly to grumble 
because the sweets are sometimes left out — would it not ?” 

Violet smiled at the homely illustration, but approved of 
the resolve, and not only the liking for her cousin, but 
respect for her talents, increased daily. Even Miss Bron- 
son applauded the girl’s industry ; she had only one reason 
lor dissatisfaction — Mary grudged the hours spent over the 
pianoforte, and at last rebelled in her quiet fashion. 

“If I meant to make music a profession,” she said, “it 
would be another thing, but I shall never become more than 
a very mediocre player.” 

“ Don’t tell me you do not love music !” sighed Miss 
Bronson. 

“ I think it is because I do love it that I am discouraged 
by my own performance,” returned Mary; and she appealed 
to Violet. 

Only that day Mr. Vaughton had come to the house full 
of enthusiasm about his pupil ; he pronounced her a 
genius, and vowed that anybody who tried to hinder her 
devoting herself to sculpture would be doing a wicked 
thing, and sacrifice not only her talents but her happiness. 

The professor had been allowed to study her efforts with 
his severely-critical eyes, and he came too, and added his 
verdict to that of Mr. Vaughton. 

Violet was in ecstasies, and Miss Bronson reduced to 
silence by these proofs of the demure little maiden’s having 
chosen the work really fitted tq employ all her powers. 

So Mary was allowed to toil as assiduously as she 
pleased, and soon went regularly each morning to the 
studio. One only needed to look at her changed face to 
see that she was happy ; and now that her shyness had 
worn off, her manners were full of charm. Violet found 
her a most agreeable companion ; and Mary, completely 


224 


IN THE STUDIO. 


won by the sympathy and appreciation she met, knew no 
bounds in her love and- admiration for her beautiful cousin. 

Visions of a future filled with successful achievements 
began to haunt the girl ; but a dream brighter than that of 
fame gilded her path, though as yet she did not recognize 
its potency, even while it permeated every thought, and 
made the crowning brightness of her way. 

It commenced with her meeting Gilbert Warner at his 
relative’s house in New York. Then followed the voyage, 
during which the weather remained so glorious that 
one almost forgot it was not Indian summer still. Some 
accident occurred to shaft or wheel — not serious enough to 
cause alarm among the passengers — only a lucky misfor- 
tune, which prolonged those charmed days to twice their 
allotted number ; from first to last a voyage in a fairy 
bark across an enchanted sea, with the marvelous Old 
World of history and tradition awaiting beyond its golden 
haze. The dream continued : the journey up to London 
was no prosaic railway travel to those young pilgrims ; the 
land looked like a garden even in its winter dress ; in the 
background, towns, towers, castles, starting up in rapid 
succession, Avhose very names were words of romance, and 
the objects themselves seemed to rise out of the depths of 
the storied past and fling their shadow as an additional 
poesy over the beautiful present. 

There Warner decreed that his relative must rest, and 
he said to Mary laughingly : 

“ One last opportunity to breathe a little freedom — we 
are still in the air where young ladies are permitted to do 
that. Once across the Channel, and a prisoner in an Aus- 
trian dungeon would not be more closely bound ; so let us 
make use of the respite, and thank the gods therefor.” 

And London — somber, denuded, at which a woman of 
the world would have shuddered — the Park an empty wild, 
the Lady’s Mile a desert, Kensington Gardens the confines 
of the globe — but all the same, a city of magical delights to 
Mary. 

Oh, the dismal, would-be aristocratic, and therefore so 
much the more dismal, lodgings — how bright they looked 
to Mary, though Mrs. Forrester,* seeing all objects through 
another atmosphere, was made sea-sick, according to her 
own account, by monstrous yellow chairs, hideous stuffed 
green parrots which served as ornaments, breakfasts of liver 


ZzY THE STUDIO, 


225 


and bacon, and a fiendish, red-faced landlady, who chanted 
as a daily litany the self-same bit of personal biography 
without ever pausing for breath : 

Which, if you’ll h’excuse me, except h’out of the sea- 
son, mum, as I’ve scarce ’ad (meanin’ no disrespect to fur- 
reners) h’anybody under a barrow-knight and ’is lady since I 
put up my name on the door-plate Mrs. ’Arriet ’Amiltoii 
Howens which it is Welsh as it ought to be for ’e was 
from Wales and traced back by a geology as long as a 
queen’s train to Hadam and Ileve if not further, and hoh, 
it’s my Constance prayer that where ’e be among the sera- 
phim a playing the ’arp with ’is wings that perwented ’e is 
from a moral sense of what’s befalling ’is inconsolable relict 
which by her this memorium was erected from his tomb- 
stone in ’Ammersmith cemetery as ’e may read who paces 
its solemn depths and well for us hall, mum, if we did more 
frequent and thereby realized our latter bends and its con- 
sequences !” 

Then the trip across the Channel, away up the Scheldt, 
Warner having assured his relative that it was safer far to 
take that route than trust to the cockle-shells which periled 
people’s lives between England and France. Then Ant- 
werp, with its old cathedral, its pictures ; then a vision of 
Ghent — of the town where they stood in the square and 
recited, In the market-place of Bruges stands a belfry 
old and browm then a rest in Brussels — the dream wax- 
ing brighter and brighter as it neared its close. Then a sud- 
den break — the weariness of travel — the common earth 
again — for the two had parted. 

But the knowledge that they should meet soon, and his 
arrival in Florence so short a time after her own, prevented 
Mary’s learning her secret through the discipline of waiting 
and unrest. 

Man -like, Gilbert Warner had been less reticent with 
his heart ; he knew that he loved this fair girl, wdth eyes 
clear and pure as a woodland brook, with her odd com- 
pound of shyness and courage, common-sense so strong 
that sometimes, to a careless observer, it became too practi- 
cal, gleams of genius breaking through her talk and shin- 
ing from her countenance in moments of emotion strong 
enough to make her forget timidity, or in the society of 
those with whom she was sufficiently in unison to let her real 
self appear. 

10 + 


226 


TUB STUDIO. 


Like many artists, Warner was disinclined to general 
society, but he proved a frequent and welcome visitor at 
Violet Cameron’s house, and became almost as great a favor- 
ite with the professor as was Laurence Aylmer. The 
shrewd old German found keen interest in watching the 
romances he perceived in progress about him, seeing more 
clearly the real state of affairs than the actors themselves ; 
but, save for that warning to Laurence, he kept his own 
counsel, confident that any little mistakes would gradually 
be set right, since they were all honest and true. 

The hour came when Mary’s little spasms of embarrass- 
ment in Aylmer’s presence — her avoidance of him at one 
time, her evident pleasure in his society at another — struck 
Warner as forcibly as those signs appealed to Miss Cameron, 
and gave him food for troubled thought in his solitude ; 
but the first opportunity for a pleasant talk with the girl 
always caused him to forget his fears, and to settle back 
upon the conviction that Aylmer had neither eyes nor ears, 
except for Violet Cameron, and that Mary knew it. 

One evening, when Warner was dining at the house, 
Violet chanced to express a wish that she had a good por- 
trait of her cousin, d propos to her disapproval of some 
proofs of a photograph for wliich Mary had sat. She had 
the style of face which protography always maligns ; it 
reproduced her as a serious washed-out looking little dam- 
sel, hardening the physical contours, and utterly refusing 
to give a glimpse of the expression which rendered her 
more than pretty. 

The very next day Warner took advantage of this wish 
to give himself a great pleasure. That girlish countenance, 
so full of beautiful possibilities, haunted him as he sat at 
the easel, busy with his historical picture, often to the 
exclusion of the group of martial figures growing into life 
upon the canvas. He had been for some time thinking that 
if he could only paint the face, he might be able to work 
more easily ; at present his longing to do so hindered him 
sadly. While tracing the bronzed lineaments of one of his 
heroic Gauls, that idea of painting her would grow so 
strong, that not unseldom he found himself putting Mar}^s 
pensive smile on the bearded lips, or softening the stern 
glance of the eyes with the dreamy expression which beau- 
tified hers. 

Here was an opportunity not to be wasted ; considering 


IN THE STUDIO. 


227 


the reason he had to give, she could hardly refuse ; so he 
went into Mary’s room to try his powers of persuasion. 
The house stood on a corner, and the entrance to the 
sculptor’s quarters was in a different street from Warner’s, 
but a long passage connected his studio with the chamber 
assigned to Mary, on one side of which was the sculptor’s 
atelier, on the other his living apartments. A door led 
into a salon where Miss Vaughton habitually spent her 
mornings, and, to satisfy Eliza Bronson’s scruples, it had 
been agreed that this door was always to be left open dur- 
ing Mary’s working hours. 

Does she think those plaster-casts Mr. Vaughton 
means to leave in my possession will contaminate me ?” she 
said, laughingly, to Violet. I am not likely to have any 
visitors except herself and you.” 

Mary had not taken Warner’s propinquity into consid- 
eration ; but on that very account his coming in and out 
could hardly fall under the head of visits, was the way she 
settled the matter later in her mind, when his appearance 
on one pretext or another proved a daily occurrence. 

So this morning Warner tapped at the corridor door, 
and was bidden to enter by a voice which fluttered a little 
in unison with Mary’s heart — that familiar knock always 
set it beating more rapidly. 

The chamber was picturesque enough ; Violet had in- 
sisted upon fitting it up according to her own ideas, and 
when finished, Mary was rather horrified at the thought of 
what all its elegance must have cost. 

The walls were hung with tapestry ; the casts artisti- 
cally arranged ; here and there stood easels supporting pic- 
tures ; near the fireplace was spread a great Turkey carpet. 
There were carved chairs and couches covered with rich 
Eastern stuffs, marvelous cabinets filled with choice curiosi- 
ties, books and ornaments in profusion, but everything in 
keeping with the purpose for which the room was meant. 

‘‘ It is too fine,” said Mary. 

You could not work any more easily in a den,” re- 
turned Violet. 

‘‘It is beautiful!” cried Mary. “I used to dream of 
one day having a wonderful studio, but I couldn’t even im- 
agine anything so perfect as this ! Oh ! you spoil me ; 
you make me walk on velvet ; I shall grow too lazy and 
self-indulgent to be as industrious as I ought !” 


228 


IN THE STUDIO. 


But Violet had begun to read her character too well to 
have any such fears, and Mary soon discovered that her 
picturesque surroundings were a help rather than a hin- 
drance. 

Warner entered, and, after they had exchanged saluta- 
tions, seated himself, and Mary continued her modeling ; 
it was a part of their bargain that his ‘‘dropping in” 
should never be allowed to interrupt her work. While 
they talked he sat and watched her with the mingled ad- 
miration of a lover and an artist, for she never looked 
prettier than in the gray costumes, made according to Vio- 
let^s fancy, which she wore here instead of her ordinary 
somber black. 

“ 1 couldn’t sit for a likeness,” Mary declared, when he 
had led the conversation up to the matter which filled his 
mind. “ I have a horror of it — portraits always look so 
stiff, and mine would look stiffer than anybody else’s !” 

“ Now that is casting a doubt on my capacities,” 
said he. 

“ Oh, you know what I meant !” 

“ It would please your cousin so much,” he continued. 
“We would keep it a secret, and surprise her with the 
picture.” 

“ But I should lose so much time,” urged Mary. 

“ Come, you shall neither be forced to pose nor lose 
your time,” continued he. “ I will make a study of the 
room and you at work. Ah, do consetit ! remember how 
delighted Miss Cameron will be.” 

I doubt if the artful wretch ever meant the painting to 
go out of his own possession, but Mary could not know 
this, and it seemed ill-natured to refuse his request, espe- 
cially as it was intended as a means of gratifying Violet. 
Then Warner appealed to Miss Vaughton — a difficult and 
noisy undertaking, owing to her excessive deafness. For 
some time she thought he was telling her that Mary pro- 
posed to enter a nunnery, a mistake caused by the excite- 
ment of just having heard that an acquaintance had em- 
braced Roman Catholicism and immured herself within the 
walls of a French convent ; and she pleaded piteously with 
Miss Danvers not to follow so shocking an example. 

However, w'hen Warner, after shouting until nearly 
breathless, at length succeeded in making her understand 
what he was talking about, she highly approved ; so did 


LIKE JONAH^S GOURD. 


229 


her brother, who entered while the matter was under dis- 
cussion, and his verdict settled the business. 

Warner rushed off in search of the canvas, which he 
had provided in advance, brought an easel and color-box, 
and set to work at once. His rapidity of execution made 
him the envy of his fellow-painters, but his progress with 
this picture was very slow indeed, and he insisted on copy- 
ing the hangings and adornments of the room with pre- 
Raphaelite fidelity. 

So the days floated on, and the sweet idyl of youth and 
love grew in beauty and interest ; though there would be 
nothing new in its details, if translated into words, bright 
and fresh as it seemed to those young hearts. 

He uttered no open avowal — the time had not come for 
that. Had Miss Vaughton been less deaf than she was, 
her presence would have proved no. restraint. But the 
poem of their lives went on, each additional page a sweeter 
melody, until that mediaeval room became a fairy haunt, 
lifted so far above the common world that no echo of its 
fret and din could reach the pair in their enchanted quiet. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

LIKE JOKAH’s GOUED. 

lULIA DA RIMINI had long since perceived 
that Miss Cameron’s neglect of her visits sprang 
from a settled resolution to limit their inter- 
course to the most distant terms, but she ap- 
peared unconscious of the slight, and never 
failed to greet Violet with affectionate fervor when they 
met at the houses of mutual acquaintances. 

Even during her previous stay in Florence, Miss 
Cameron, disliking the woman from the first, had never 
done more than leave an occasional card or an invitation 
when she gave a general party ; but certain that this sea- 
son not even so much attention would be accorded, before 
Violet had announced her day for receiving, Giulia adroitly 
found it out from Nina and adopted the same, and as 



230 


LIKE J0KAW8 GOUED. 


Violet gave no balls or other large entertainments this 
winter, outside of her little knot of special friends, no- 
body’s attention was drawn to the fact that any change 
had taken place in her relations with the duchess. 

‘^Nevertheless, Violet Cameron will have to pay for 
that supper,” Lady Harcourt said one day to Nina and 
Sabakine. 

“ I hope the fair Giulia may try to make her,” returned 
the prince. “ For I have an idea the American will out- 
general her completely.” 

Lady Harcourt shook her head. 

“ Good gracious !” cried Nina, “ you don’t mean to say 
you think Giulia as clever a woman as Violet ? She is 
crafty enough ” 

“Ah,” interrupted her ladyship, “you have hit on the 
very word ! Violet Cameron is as honest and truthful as 
the light — that is just where Giulia will gain the advan- 
tage.” 

“ For once in her life she would be puzzled to find out 
a way of doing any harm,” said Sabakine ; “ Miss Cam- 
eron is above the reach of her malice — common mortals 
are not.” 

“ And since she is, we do not need to render ourselves 
unhappy,” rejoined Lady Harcourt, calmly. 

“ Violet would never forgive any of us for venturing 
to think solicitude necessary,” said Nina. 

“No doubt of that,” replied Lady Harcourt, “so we 
should be saved the exertion in any case. Well, well, it is 
none of our affair ; one may like Miss Cameron and adore 
Giulia, still we can’t force them to rush into each other’s 
arms.” 

“ That would be as unexciting to Giulia as kissing a 
pane of glass,” said Nina gayly, and took her departure. 

“ She is quite ready to regard Giulia as harmless now 
that Carlo is safe out of her clutches,” said Lady Har- 
court. 

“ I am afraid she makes her exultation and security a 
little too palpable to Giulia,” returned Sabakine. “ The 
ides of March are not over !” 

His words were more significant than he knew. At the 
time Giulia established her confidential relations with the 
Greek, she entirely changed her tactics towards Carlo. 
She had on several occasions worried him with scenes — 


LIKE JONAH'S GOURD. 


231 


tender, jealous, upbraiding — but neither exhibition had any 
effect except to make liim avoid her because he objected to 
having his indolent comfort disturbed. 

Had she continued those persecutions, he would speedily 
have hated her ; but when her behavior convinced him that 
she meant to submit with a good grace to the inevitable, he 
was ready to be on pleasant terms, and rather admired the 
tact with which she accepted the position. Their gambling 
propensities formed a bond between them, and for some 
time after their intercourse had been relegated to that 
of familiar acquaintanceship. Carlo’s luck at cards took a 
favorable turn which inspired him with a feeling of 
general benevolence in which Giulia had a lion’s share, 
from the fact that on several occasions when they played 
against each other, she was a considerable loser. 

At last, one night at the club, when he had suggested 
'ecarte to the Greek, that worthy regretted his inability to 
remain ; he had promised to join Gherardi and a few othei’s 
at the duchess’s house to indulge in a little poker,” which 
had become a favorite game with them all, and into which 
the Greek carried the benefit of his Californian experiences. 

“ Why not come too ?” Dimetri asked. ‘‘It is just an 
impromptu affair ; we happened to meet her this morning 
at the Skating Rink ; she said then if you had been there 
she would have asked you to join us. You had better go 
than stop moping here.” 

Having nothing to do until midnight, when he was to 
meet his wife at Potaski’s, Carlo went to the duchess’s, and 
found “poker” so attractive that on Giulia’s proposing a 
similar party a few evenings afterwards, he consented with- 
out hesitation. 

“ I thought you meant to quarrel with me,” said she. 

“I am sure you could not have thought that,” he 
replied. “Quarrel with you, duchess? As well expect a 
man to quarrel with the light — the sun — any beautiful 
thing, the sight of which is necessary for happiness !” 

“ It would be very silly in both of us,” she said with her 
frankest smile. “ Nothing forms so sure a bond of friend- 
ship as a little sentimental folly of which two people are 
cured — it is odd that one could not go back if one tried ?” 

“ Now that is very uncomplimentary !” 

“ Nonsense', Carlo ; you know what I mean ! Come, we 
are to be good comrades ; yes, and help each other if either 


232 


LIKE JOKAWS GOUBD. 


should want help. Only don’t be stand-offish — nothing 
would be so certain to make people gossip, after our long 
friendship.” 

“ I never dreamed of being so,” said he, a little nettled 
at finding that her cure was as effectual as his own, even 
while he secretly applauded her wisdom, and rejoiced that 
she did not mean to make cards a bore in her society. 

Ob, I knew very well wffiose work it was,” returned 
Giulia, with stately pleasantry. “ My dear Carlo, I shall 
be charmed to see you soften the American icicle ; but 
surely, even if Miss Cameron is too virtuous to play herself, 
she need not grudge you a little relaxation.” 

Carlo laughed, but he knew that any disclaimers would 
be wasted ; nobody was better aware than Giulia that he 
would as soon have thought of flirting with a sister as with 
Miss Cameron, but he reflected that if he vexed her too far, 
refused to game at her house, she might invent reports 
which would disturb Violet, and he was too well acquainted 
with Florence to forget that the more improbable the slan- 
der, the more readily it would find credence. 

So he quite put his going down to a care for Miss Cam- 
eron’s reputation, and really felt very virtuous in being able 
to shield the gratification of his master-passion under such 
fine motives — they would give an unanswerable reason also 
to Nina, if she discovered that he had been drawn back to 
the enchantress’s bower. She would consider it better for 
him to risk losing a little money to Giulia than, by break- 
ing with her completely, rouse her anger to such a pitch 
that she would revenge herself by scandals against Miss 
Cameron, well knowing that she could hardly choose any 
form of retaliation so painful to both husband and wife. 

The duchess belonged to the order of schemers which, 
though capable of inventing plots on a grand scale and pos- 
sessing the generalship to carry them out, is petty and 
crafty enough never to neglect the smallest cunning device 
which can prove of personal use or the means of annoying 
another. 

One rainy day three or four ladies and as many gentle- 
men were killing time by playing baccarat in her salon — • 
old Mademoiselle de Roquefort forced to sit by and act as 
duenna ; not that her presence checked either the betting 
or the reckless conversation to which, accustomed as she 
was, her unfortunate conscience could never grow indiffer- 


LIKE JONAH'S QOUBD, 


288 


ent, bnt a duenna Giulia must have — it was almost her sole 
sacrifice to appearances, and poor mademoiselle’s sufferings 
rendered it a pleasure too. 

Somebody mentioned Miss Cameron’s name, and it 
struck the duchess this was a favorable opportunity for 
making it appear that she and the lady were on visiting 
terms. She had taken several cards of Violet’s out of the 
baskets in the salons of mutual acquaintances, a couple of 
the purloined bits of pasteboard lay among those left by 
her own visitors, and she possessed another which she had 
devoted to a special purpose. 

She quitted the room on some pretext, got the card 
and gave it to her footman, ordering him presently to enter 
and present it as if Miss Cameron were waiting below. 

“ It is just to play a joke on Signor Gherardi,” she said ; 
“ be sure you are very serious, and do your part naturally. 
Wait twenty minutes or so, and then come in.” 

Before the time had elapsed, Lady Harcourt was an- 
nounced. The duchess would rather not have had a person- 
so intimate with Miss Cameron a witness of the maneuver, 
but she reflected that it was very doubtful if her ladyship 
would pay sufilcient attention to the matter ever to mention 
it to the American, and in case she did, a denial on the crea- 
ture’s part of having come to the Palazzo Rimini would ap- 
pear a palpable fib. 

Any way it was too late to countermand her order ; the 
new-comer had scarcely got seated before the footman ap- 
peared. Giulia, occupied in dealing the hands, said aloud, 
as the man presented the card : 

‘‘Who is it, Alessandro?” 

Gherardi sat next her ; he unceremoniously leaned over 
and read out the name before the servant could speak : 

“ Miss Cameron !” 

“ Oh, good heavens !” exclaimed the duchess ; “ what 
will she think to find us playing cards at this unholy hour — 
and the room is blue with tobacco smoke !” 

“We shall all be ruined in her estimation,” laughed 
Gherardi. 

“ Oh, you may laugh, but I am really afraid — she is so 
strict !” cried the duchess. “ What shall I do. Lady Har- 
court ?” 

“ Let her come up, by all means,” replied her ladyship, 
calmly. She looked the picture of indifference, but all the 


234 


LIKE JONAirS GOURD. 


same she was watching. Giulia’s agitation struck her as a 
welhdone bit of comedy, played for some secret purpose. 

I would not,” added one of the other ladies — a country 
woman of Miss Cameron’s, to whom baccarat by daylight 
was a rather stolen amusement. “ What is the good of 
shocking anybody who has scruples ?” 

“You are right,” said the duchess, looking relieved. 
“ Alessandro, did the porter say I was in ?” 

“ He said that he was not certain — he would see, eccel- 
lenza,” returned Alessandro, with true Italian readiness. 

“ Then say you are out !” cried Gherardi ; “ gone to 
vespers.” 

They all laughed as if the idea were a capital joke, 
though in reality the duchess was very regular in her devo- 
tions, and Sabakine vowed that when she had a new sin to 
commit, she always went through a novena to insure 
success. 

“ Will you all promise not to betray me ?” she asked. 
“ Lady Harcourt — Gherardi — all of you ?” 

“ Yes, we promise,” they answered. 

“ Then bid the porter say I am out — he did not know it 
— I had gone out through the garden, Alessandro.” 

“ Gone to vespers, and I went with her,” added Ghe- 
rardi. 

The servant retired, grave as a judge. 

“ The Anglo-Saxon race has such odd ideas !” cried 
Giulia. “ No better than us Latins — I beg your pardon. Lady 
Harcourt, but one never knows what trifle English and 
Americans may be shocked at.” 

“ Don’t mind me — I have no prejudices,” returned her 
ladyship. 

“ I really do admire Miss Cameron so much,” added 
Giulia. 

“I hate her,” said Gherardi, “because I know her 
beauty and her money are out of my reach. But even the 
fair American must not be permitted to interfere with busi- 
ness.” 

They resumed their game, and presently Lady Har- 
court took her leave. She did not happen to see Violet 
Cameron until a couple of days afterwards, but she had not 
forgotten the little episode. 

“ Have you been at dear Giulia’s lately ?” she asked. 

“ No,” Violet replied, paused an instant, then added . 


LIKE J0NAW8 QOUBD 


285 


You ask me that just in the hope of teasing ! I told you 
and Nina I had not been at her house this season, or invited 
her to mine, and had no intention of doing so.” 

“I thought perhaps you had changed your mind,” said 
er ladyship ; ‘‘you know I told you at the time that it is 
always useless to make an exception of a person whom 
everybody receives.” 

“ I dare say it is,” was all the answer Violet returned. 

“Now I enjoy dear Giulia’s society; I like to watch 
her maneuvers. Usually they are so deep it is difficult to 
find them out, and that always interests me.” 

“ She does not happen to interest me.” 

“ A pity, a pity,” rejoined Lady Harcourt, laughing, 
though her voice held a tone of warning. “ But I know 
you are adamant when once you have made up your mind, 
so I only say — a pity ! Have you seen Bellucci’s new 
picture ?” 

She entered into a dissertation concerning the merits of 
the painting, and seemed to forget the duchess as com- 
pletely as Violet did, but as she was driving home, she said 
to herself : 

“ Miss Cameron will certainly have to pay for that sup- 
per ! Well, I can do nothing ! If I talked a month it 
would only make her more contemptuous of Giulia’s power ; 
it is best to leave matters alone. Trying to guard a person 
against trouble is the surest way to help it forward.” 

But she thought often of the matter, and her suspicions 
that Giulia contemplated mischief grew stronger ; though, 
well informed as she usually kept herself, even her ladyship 
did not know that as time elapsed these impromptu parties 
at the duchess’s occurred more and more frequently. 

At last, without hesitation, Giulia said to the men : 

“Why shouldn’t we have regular evenings? Come, it 
shall be a private club ! I will furnish the rooms, and you 
shall divide the expense of wine and seltz and cigars 
among you — then we shall all be perfectly at our ease.” 

In vspite of her eagerness to entangle Carlo hopelessly 
in this new web, the idea of going to any expense weighed 
on her soul. She could slop even while counting up that 
ready money of his to regret each glass of punch which she 
had to pay for, and finally hit on this method, perfectly in- 
different as to what any of them might think of her parsi- 
mony. 


236 


LIKE JONAH^S GOURD 


The others applauded her proposal, but Carlo hesitated 
a little ; he was afraid Nina might hear of the matter and 
suspect that under such excuse he had drifted back to his 
old intimacy with the duchess, though his fear did not 
arise so much from consideration for his wife’s feelings as 
from a dread of her believing him weak enough to be 
deluded anew. 

Giulia read his thoughts easily enough, and determined 
to render refusal impossible. 

“ Carlo says nothing,” she cried playfully ; “ he has to 
ask consent !’* 

‘‘ What an idea !” said Gherardi. “ You forget, 
duchess, that Carlo’s matrimonial tie is a garland of 
flowers, not an iron fetter !” 

I beg your pardon,” returned she, with the grave dig- 
nity by which, when she chose, she could control any one. 
of them ; even in jest I do not like such an insinuation ! 
Nina Magnoletti is the dearest friend 1 have in the world. 
Carlo might play cards the week through in this house 
without scruple on her part.” Then she added, with a 
relapse into playfulness : “ No, no ; the restriction would 
come from a very different quarter, eh. Carlo ?” 

Lightly as she spoke, the glance she fastened on him 
warned the marchese of fhe direction her anger would take 
in case he refused, and the eagerness with which his com- 
panions called on Giulia to explain, showed how easy it 
would be for her to set the ball in motion. 

‘‘ No influence could count against a wish of yours, 
duchess ; you know that only too well,” said he. 

“ Bravo !” she cried. ‘‘ Then it is a bargain ! And we 
will keep our club a profound secret, else we shall have a 
crowd — is that agreed ?” 

They all consented, and this removed Carlo’s last 
scruple, as Giulia had been sure it would do, and no one 
caught the rapid glance of triumph which she flashed into 
the Greek’s wickedly smiling eyes. 

Carlo’s increasing infatuation for cards caused Nina a 
great deal of uneasiness, but he had behaved so well in the 
affair of the duchess that she feared this winter to attempt 
any open opposition in regard to his crowning weakness — 
thankful to compound fur a form of amusemeijt wliich, if it 
caused pecuniary embarrassments, was at least engrossing 
enough to spare her the pain of seeing him rush into a 


LIKE JON AW 8 GOURD. 


237 


fresh flirtation. His good fortune, too, lasted for some 
time, and he told her of it : so she quieted her fears by 
trusting that his lucky vein would continue, and as she 
believed that he usually played at the club when he had no 
card parties at home, she remained quiescent. 

He must amuse himself — he has a right,” she said to 
Violet ; and oh, my dear, I’d pawn my diamonds with 
satisfaction, if it were necessary, just to reward him for the 
pleasure it gives me to see how all Giulia’s efforts are 
wasted.” 

For that astute lady did not hesitate in Nina’s presence 
to affect pique when the marchese paid attention to some 
new lady, and would say to the little wife : 

“ Carlo runs away from me as if I were the plague ! 
Violet Cameron has made him hate me — ah, don’t you let 
her make you hate me too !” 

‘‘ She never tries ; she could not if she would,” returned 
Nina, wondering whether Giulia was most piqued at Vio- 
let’s having betrayed her to Carlo, or at the difticulty she 
found in winning Laurence Aylmer from his allegiance to 
his beautiful countrywoman. 

But as the weeks went on, though her mind continued 
at rest as to her husband’s cure, she felt less confident in 
regard to Aylmer’s ability to resist the duchess’s wiles. 
Giulia’s infatuation only deepened, and her resolve to sub- 
due Laurence waxed stronger with each fresh proof of the 
slight progress she was making. She persecuted him a 
great deal, and the ground on which she stationed herself 
appealed so keenly to his chivalry that, though he grew 
more and more impatient and heartily cursed his ill luck, 
he could not refuse to listen when she poured her troubles 
into his ears — inventing marvelous stories, pretending fear 
of her very life, declaring that she had been warned of a 
plot to poison her if all other means failed to give the duke 
his victory, showing letters from a faithful friend in Paris 
who kept her informed of what her enemies there were 
doing (letters written according to her own dictation), and 
playing her part so well that he could not help feeling sorry 
for her, though his distaste grew into positive aversion. 

Nina saw many signs which disturbed her ; Lady Har- 
court and Sabakine saw them too, and they were all gen- 
uinely troubled, for they had set their hearts on Aylmer’s 
winning Miss Cameron. 


238 


LIKE J0NAW8 GOURD. 


I did not think he would be such an idiot,” said Nina ; 
“ I really believed he was a little less weak than the rest of 
his sex.” 

“ Oh, my dear, it is just because of his looking superior 
and poetical,” rejoined Lady Harcourt ; he is made of the 
same clay as the others, only the outside stamp is dif- 
ferent.” 

He can’t get rid of her, that I believe is the truth,” 
said Sabakine, with a generosity marvelous in one man’s 
judgment of another. 

“ He shouldn’t have put himself in a position where any 
such effort would have been necessary,” cried Nina. 

Come now, be merciful !” laughed Sabakine. ‘‘There 
is no male animal in all history whom you women despise 
as you do Joseph. You can’t expect any fellow of this 
generation to incur your scorn by following his example.” 

Nina would have liked to warn Laurence, but her two 
friends advised her to leave matters alone — interference 
would only make them worse — and, to her relief. Miss 
Cameron’s persistent seclusion this winter kept her from 
perceiving Giulia’s arts, and no hint of the rumors which 
began to be whispered about were carried to her ears. 

There were other rumors too, which did not reach Nina 
or Aylmer any more than they did Violet — that Carlo had 
transferred his devotion to Miss Cameron ; but they were 
very softly whispered, and even Lady Harcourt and Saba- 
kine failed to trace them to their rightful source — the 
duchess and her ally the Greek. 

Then, as time wore on. Carlo and Aylmer became less 
intimate. They were perfectly friendly and cordial, but 
did not see each other so often. The duchess managed 
that easily enough by letting each know things of the other 
which caused mutual disapprobation. Aylmer was aware 
that Carlo played more and more heavily, and lost a great 
deal, and Carlo wondered that Laurence could foolishly 
risk his chances with Violet, and felt, in spite of his 
genuine indifference to Giulia, that vague jealousy a man 
usually does feel towards his probable successor in a 
woman’s regard, however glad he may be to recover his 
own freedom. 

So the duchess was kept busy, and her excitement con- 
tinued. Besides all the rest, she had a good deal of diffi- 
culty in restraining the Greek’s jealousy of Aylmer within 


MABY^S BES0LV1§. 


339 


bounds, and equal trouble to keep the American from dis 
playing his contempt for Dimetri ; and the days flew on 
with her, and her loves and her hates grew like Jonah’s 
gourd, though they were deeply rooted and full of vitality 
as forest trees. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

MARY’S RESOLVE. 

HE bas-reliefs were cast in plaster, and just then 
the Florentine artists opened an exhibition for 
the benefit of some charitable scheme. 

Mr. Vaughton sent Mary’s productions with- 
out her knowledge, and they received high en- 
comiums, pleasing a connoisseur so much that he ordered 
them in marble. Mary’s delight at her first commission, 
and her first breath of praise and success, can only be 
realized by one who has known a similar moment in early 
youth. 

Not only the pleasurable hope of independence — that 
strongest longing in every noble nature — but those visions 
of fame which are so dazzling to the young, these were 
Mary’s now, and to Violet it was delightful to see and 
sympathize with her happiness. 

One cloud still lingered on Mary’s horizon, heavy 
enough sorely to dim its brightness : she could not feel at 
ease in Laurence Aylmer’s society, and the recollections 
from which this discomfort arose sorely troubled her, in 
spite of her absorbing occupations. About this time — she 
had now been nearly two months in her new home — she 
came to a resolution in regard to the matter which 
weighed so heavily on her mind. She could not endure 
longer, she must set herself right. The task seemed very 
hard — bold, un maidenly almost, she feared — but good 
heavens ! anything would be better than to let this mis- 
construction remain ; to have him think — think Oh, 

even in her solitude Mary shivered, and broke off abruptly 
in her meditation. She must speak, that she determined 
upon, and it so happened that the very day after she came 



S40 


MARTAS RESOLVE. 


to this resolve, an opportunity to carry it into effect was 
afforded her. 

Mr. Vaughton had gone out, she knew, and she had 
been waiting to consult him about certain changes in her 
work — the bust of a friend which she was making from 
photographs. After a while she heard some one in the 
adjoining studio, and supposing that her master had 
returned, tapped on the door and opened it without wait- 
ing for permission to enter. There stood Laurence 
Aylmer. 

‘‘ Good-morning, Miss Danvers,” he said, walking 
towards her. ‘‘The workmen in the outer rooms told me 
Mr. Vaughton was not here, but I wanted a peep at the 
new group, so I came in. May I not see what you are 
working at too ! I have just come from the Exposition, 
and heard a great deal of praise of your bas-reliefs ; they 
are excellent.” 

“ Pray come in,” she answered, mastering, as best she 
might, the trouble caused by this unexpectedly speedy 
granting of her wishes. 

“ What a beau id'eal of a studio !” he exclaimed, 
following her in, and closing the door behind him. “ I 
have never been permitted to enter it, you remember. 
Thanks for removing the embargo.” 

She felt herself color as she recollected that once, when 
Violet had spoken in his presence of bringing him, she had 
received the proposal in silence, and perceiving her cousin 
look at her in surprise, had murmured an excuse about 
wanting to wait until her bas-reliefs were finished before 
she admitted visitors. 

She said something of the same sort now, conscious of 
saying it very tamely, fancying, too, that a little of her 
discomposure was reflected in his manner, as she had often 
in similar moments been tormented by thinking the case. 

“ What a charming nook it is !” he added quickly. 

“ My cousin’s taste, you might be sure ! She is much 
more genuinely artistic than any artist I know,” said Mary, 
glad not only to give vent to her enthusiastic admiration 
of Violet, but to distract his attention from her annoying 
blushes ; and she had decided long since in her own mind 
that to mention Violet’s name was enough to make Lau- 
rence Aylmer forget eyerythiug else. 

“Yes,” was all he said, but Mary saw his eyes wander 


MABY^S BE80LVE. 


241 


about the room with a positively caressing expression 
She had noticed the same look in them frequently, when, 
during his visits to the house, he would, thinking himself 
unobserved, touch some object that belonged to her — a book 
she had just laid down ; a fan or glove thrown carelessly 
on a table. 

“ As you are one of her special friends, you shall have 
her particular seat,” continued Mary, pointing towards a 
great carved easy-chair that stood on the Turkey carpet. 

He turned towards her with a quick smile — she thought 
an inquiring one. Then he caught sight of old Miss Vaugh- 
ton, seated just beyond the arched doorway, leaning plac- 
idly back, a newspaper on her knee, and her spectacles on 
her nose ; but it needed only a glance to discover that she 
was sound asleep. 

won’t disturb her by speaking,” he said. ^‘It would 
be positively wicked ; but, oh, what a negligent duenna !” 

‘‘ Pray don’t tell Miss Bronson, else she will want to 
come herself,” replied Mary, trying to speak naturally. 

“Ah, Miss Bronson would never fall asleep on the post 
of duty, I am certain,” he said, laughing. 

“Never,” said Mary, laughing too, though a little ner- 
vously. 

“ But I think she would let me in,” he continued. “ I 
flatter myself that she is good enough rather to like me.” 

“ Oh, she considers you absolutely perfect, I believe,” 
said Mary. “ She is never tired of chanting your praises 
to Violet and me.” 

“That must be somewhat of a trial to you both.” 

“We bear it,” said Mary, with a demurely mischievous 
manner, at which he smiled. 

“We must have crosses in this world,” he replied, exult- 
ing in his soul to think that he was often a subject of con- 
versation in Violet’s house and presence. 

“ Yes,” said Mary; and recollecting the cross which had 
lain so heavily on her of late, and her determination to get 
rid of it, no matter how difficult the exertion, she made no 
further effort to continue that playful badinage. 

Aylmer moved forward, and laid his hand on the back 
of the chair which Mary had called her cousin’s ; and the 
girl, parth'^to give him a moment to himself, partly to find 
sonie occupxtion wherewith to steady her mind, turned to 
lier clay and began moistening it. 

11 


242 


MART'S RESOLVE, 


Aylmer had come to Vaughton’s studio in the hope 
Violet might be visiting her relative, so that he could enjoy 
her society for awhile under the pretext of wishing to see 
Miss Danvers’s work. Actually he had not seen her ^or 
six-and-thirty hours ! He had missed her on the previous 
night at both receptions where he went ; had called at her 
house a little while before, and been told she was out. 

He fully recognized the wisdom of the professor’s sug- 
gestions, and meant to obey them to the letter ; but depriva- 
tion of her society he felt would only render his role more 
difficult when they did meet. Absence filled his heart so 
full that to repress its eagerness and appear contented with 
the friendship she offered must severely try all his powers 
of endurance. 

He was glad now that she and circumstances had com- 
bined to force upon him the reticence which he knew the 
time had not arrived to break ; left to himself, he should 
certainly have broken it, in spite of his determination, and 
perhaps have ruined his hopes utterly by forcing a decision 
upon her before her heart had spoken loudly enough to 
overcome her scruples and what she termed the voice of 
reason. She did care for him — she must ! It could not be 
that this love which pervaded his whole being by its 
strength, was utterly without power to move her. She 
cared — a thousand trifles assured him that she cared ! If 
he continued patient and prudent he should overcome her 
causes for hesitation and win his prize ! 

He roused himself to recollect that this was neither the 
time nor place to indulge in reverie. He crossed the room, 
and stood beside Mary — praised the bust, asked questions, 
examined the photographs — waiting, hoping that she might 
speak of her cousin again : even to hear Violet’s name men- 
tioned by this sweet, pure girl who loved her was a pleasure. 
And Mary endeavored to talk quietly, clutching the while 
at her wits to find courage to begin the subject upon which 
she wished to converse — reviling her own folly, since such 
hesitation might lose her this opportune chance. 

Miss Vaughton might wake ; he might take his leave 
hastily, as he almost always did if by any hazard he found 
her alone when he called at Violet’s house, and he must not 
go till she had spoken — he must not ! She might have to 
wait weeks before so favorable an occasion arose again, and 
she was wasting the time ! This reflection nerved her into 


MARY^S RESOLVE, 


243 


desperation, that tolerably well supplied the place of her 
ordinary courage, which had so cruelly deserted her. 

And he, a little preoccupied — disappointed at not having 
found Violet — unable to tear himself away without at least 
learning whether there was a hope of her yet coming, halted 
in conversation almost as much as Mary. Then, growing 
conscious that she would find his visit a terrible bore if he 
could not be a little less dull, he caught at some topic for 
talk, and unfortunately, as he thought, hit on some reminis- 
cences of the days when he used to be a frequent guest at 
her father’s house. 

‘‘ It seems a long while ago,” he said, still longer when 
I look at you and see how you have changed.” 

He stopped suddenly. How much or how little her 
father’s death had let her into the secrets of his affairs he 
could not tell, but she did know there had been difficulties 
between himself and George Danvers, and worse than all, 
she knew something of the plan the latter at one time con- 
ceived in which she was to have a share. 

How idiotically stupid to remind her of that season ! 
What might she not think ! He glanced at her — she had 
become scarlet ; then, before he could remove his gaze, she 
grew deathly pale. 

Now she must speak ! She had been wondering how 
she was ever to find words, but the consciousness of having 
betrayed such agitation rendered her more frantic, and she 
burst out : 

‘‘ Mr. Aylmer, there is something I have wanted to say 
to you ever since I came to Florence — I can never be at 
ease with you till I have. Maybe it is wrong for a girl to 

speak She broke off, reflected an instant, then, 

though the color came back to her cheeks in a torrent, and 
she trembled in every limb from nervous excitement, she 
lifted her head proudly, and added in a firm voice : ‘‘ No, 
it cannot be wrong for a girl to set herself right ! There 
is something higher than conventional scruples — womanly 
dignity.” 

And I never saw a girl with more, or who knew bet- 
ter how to make it respected,” he said, gently, though he 
looked a little uncomfortable. 

I thank you,” Mary answered. I know you are 
hr nest and good — you will not misunderstand me. Wait, 


244 


MARY^S RESOLVE, 


please ; if I don’t say it quickly I shan’t be able to say it at 
all.” 

She pressed her hand hard against her heart, trembling 
more violently, but her tones were firm still as she went 
on : 

“ I know what my father once talked to you about. 
During his illness he told me. Oh, he thought at one 
time that a — a marriage between you and me would be 

possible — that — that Oh, I can’t tell you how it has 

humiliated me to think you might suppose I had — had 
cared for you ! And when we meet now it is always in 
my mind. Then I act so silly that I am afraid other peo- 
ple might notice — and — and — oh, it drives me almost wild 
sometimes ! I can’t endure it — I can’t have you think I 
ever felt so much as the ghost of a girlish fancy for you ! 
Oh, I never dreamed of such a thing, any more than you 
dreamed of considering me a grown woman !” 

I am sure of it, Miss Danvers,” he answered. When 
your father honored me by suggesting that such an alliance 
would not be displeasing to him, he assured me that ho had 
not spoken to you — that he did not know if you could ^ 
entertain the idea.” 

“You are very good to try and spare me,” she said, 

“ but papa told me ev.erything when he was ill. Oh, Mr. 
Aylmer, I am sure that for months and months before, his 
head was affected by that dreadful disease which killed 
him ! Oh, it was that made him commit so many mistakes 
in business ; and he lost other people’s moneyas well as his 
own, and they thought he was wicked.” 

“ It is very probable he suffered as you say,” Aylmer 
replied. “But indeed. Miss Mary, it is useless* to think of 
those things !” 

“Yes,” she sighed, “useless. I cannot right these 
losses. Oh, if the time should ever come ! But I can set 
myself right ! I do beg you to understand ! Why, I 
couldn’t have dreamed of marrying you, if you had been 
the only man in the world — oh, I did not think how that 
sounded ! Please, please don’t call me rude — I like you 
very much — I know how clever and good you are — oh, I am 
only making it all worse !” 

“ Indeed you are not,” he said, with a smile — so com- 
posed that he quieted her. “ I am sure your very strong 
asseveration was not meant to be uncomplimentary. Believe 


MARY^S RESOLVE. 


245 


me, I perfectly appreciate your motive in speaking ; if you 
were uncomfortable, we could never get on easy, friend- 
ly terms — and I hope you mean to let me count myself 
among your friends, Miss Mary.” 

Indeed, I shall be very proud if I may !” she cried ; 
and tears rose in her eyes, but they were signs of relief, 
not trouble. She had got a great weight off her mind. 
He believed her, and received her abrupt revelation with 
such perfect tact, that her embarrassment vanished. 

‘‘ Good, firm friends,” he went on, “ and ready to con- 
gratulate one another when each finds that heart and love 
which is said to await every human being somewhere — • 
sometime !” 

His smile grew soft and dreamy. Ah, he had found 
the realization of his ideal — Mary knew that ! She sat 
down on the sofa, and he placed himself beside her. She 
looked up at him with a sigh of relief, saying : 

am so glad I have spoken — I wish I had done so 
before ! I wanted to tell my cousin — to tell Violet. But 
it all seemed so silly — it was so difficult to explain to any- 
body ; and I w^as afraid if I tried, and worked myself into 
one of my excitements, I should only make it look as if I 
had — had cared.” 

But now you have spoken, and are at rest,” he said. 
“ Believe me, I never had — could not have — any thought 
of you derogatory to your dignity in any respect.” 

‘‘ Ah, but when you saw me behave so foolishly as I 
did !” cried Mary. ‘‘ I acted very often as if I was 
frightened — sometime I talked rubbish, just out of bravado ! 
Plenty of men would have been stupid enough to think I 
cared. Oh, I thank you a thousand times !” 

‘^It is for me to thank you for your good opinion,” he 
said, with another kindly smile. “And now that every- 
thing is cleared up, you will be quite at ease with me, and 
begin to look on me as a friend ?” 

“ Yes, indeed ! And, oh, Mr. Aylmer — I know you lost 
money through papa — try not to blame him ! You wouldn’t 
think he cheated ! Why, a bad man would have managed 
to save his own money — and he lost all his.” ^ 

“ Since I ^ntered into speculations voluntarily, it is my- 
self that I must blame. Miss Mary.” 

He could say that, but he could say no more. Danvers 
had certainly deceived him egregiously. He often won- 


246 


“ THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:^ 


dered if, at the time the man sounded the ground to see 
whether a marriage between Aylmer and his daughter 
might be possible, he meant in that case to spare his friend’s 
fortune. But even if he had, he could not have done it — 
his mania for speculation would have carried him away. 

At this moment some one in Mr. Vaughton’s studio 
knocked for admittance, and before Mary could answer, 
the door opened, Violet Cameron appeared on the threshold, 
and just behind her stood Warner. 

The pair seated on the sofa rose quickly, but the intrud- 
ers both took in the tableau which their entrance disturbed 
— Aylmer bending over Mary, she looking eagerly up into 
his face ; beyond the arched doorway on the other side of 
the room good Miss Vaughton tranquilly reposing in her 
arm-chair, dreaming, doubtless, of far different things than 
those duties of chaperonage which Eliza Bronson had en- 
deavored to impress upon her mind. 

Mary hurried forward, and Aylmer followed ; for a few 
moments they all stood and talked together, but Violet was 
the only one of the four who seemed at ease — Violet, calm, 
gracious, smiling, and all the while with a sensation at her 
heart as if a hand of ice had suddenly been laid upon it, 
chilling its pulses with a mortal coldness. The interview 
was torture to Warner. His jealous suspicions, so long 
combated, so often thrust aside, surged up in an angry 
storm which he feared face and voice must betray, and he 
took his departure so abruptly that poor Mary’s agitation 
increased, though she did not assign his displeasure to its 
rightful cause. 


CHAPTER XXVL 
‘‘the end of our romance.’^ 

EX days elapsed — the most restless and misera- 
ble Violet Cameron had ever endured. 

I have said little in reference to her feelings 
towards Laurence Aylmer as the winter went 
on, because it seemed wiser to set the record 
all down together in the place where it rightfully belongs 



THE EMB OF OUR ROMANCE, 


247 


—-the time when Violet forced her unwilling soul to admit 
the truth — clearly, openly — without pity for its shame, 
without mercy for her acliing heart. 

She loved Laurence Aylmer. The attempt to shelter 
the feeling under the guise of a fancy had speedily proved 
unavailing, from the fact that reason told her fancies did 
not belong to her years. Then for a season she called the 
sentiment which engrossed her by the easy name of sym- 
pathy. He was so superior to the ordinary men who 
hovel ed about her, so much more elevated in intellect and 
refined in tastes, with aspirations and ambitions of which 
they were as incapable as butterflies of singing like night- 
ingales. His enthusiasm and perseverance, his determina- 
tion to carry out his aspirations, made his life a real life : 
all these things had attracted her towards him, helped to 
forge the tie between them. 

Weak as her other pretense had been ! She loved this 
man — loved him with the poetical fervor which destiny 
had prevented her youth from developing — loved him with 
the strength of her womanhood ; and those girlish dreams 
which had found no object whereon to spend their riches, 
which she had thought worn out, lived beyond, rose from 
their quiescence, eager, importunate, and cast their glow 
across the secret of her maturity. 

She loved him ! Useless to argue, to say that she did 
not even know him well : heart and soul gave her the lie, 
smiled triumphant over common-sense, and intrenched 
themselves in that overwhelming assertion. And this 
strong love which had come to her out of season, belated 
— like a flower blooming after the first frosts of autumn — 
must be crushed, though she trampled her heart into atoms 
in order to effect its destruction. 

Since that certainty of Mary’s affection had forced 
itself upon her, Violet had held many a bitter, savage com- 
munion with that rebellious heart which insisted so wildly 
upon possessing its happiness. Was she to let a girl’s 
dream — such a weak thing at best — stand between her and 
the fullness of bliss ! And from their first moment of meet- 
ing, this man had loved her — her — Violet ! And the very 
force with which her heart uttered that assurance brought 
a reaction. Say that he loved her — more, admit that she 
was beautiful enough to win any man’s love — what then ? 
Why this : her factitious semblance of youth, already 


248 


“ THE END OF OUR ROMANCE. 


unduly prolonged, might fade any day ; the least mischance 
— a passing illness, a suddeu trouble — might bring the 
wrinkles into her forehead, the gray into her hair ; worse 
still, might freeze and kill the freshness of thought which 
had kept her soul young, and that soul, worn and tired, 
reflect its weariness in her features, and help more speedily 
to obliterate the last trace of beauty which had brought 
men to her feet. 

If she were to marry him and then the change should 
come, after just months enough of perfect happiness to 
render life unendurable if she were forced to accept any 
portion of bliss which could be counted, having known hap- 
piness in its unmeasurable fullness! 

Such a season often came into the lives of women who 
married men older than themselves, but under those cir- 
cumstances the sufferer could have the relief of feeling that 
she and her husband were growing elderly together. 

But this love which beset her — Violet ! If she were to 
marry this man towards whom her heart had gone out, she 
must see herself age — see the lines come in her face, the 
gray into her hair — while he, as a man, had claims to youth 
still live perhaps to hear the world wonder what could 
have induced him to such sacrifice — or, worse yet, live to 
know that he wondered himself. And if he were noble 
enough to remain true, that would make matters worse for 
him ; each time girlish charms attracted his eye he would 
have to check the bitter reflection that if he had only 
waited, only resisted a fancy, he might now in his prime 
have taken that loveliness to his breast, have prolonged his 
own youth by its possession ; whereas, through his folly, he 
had rendered such happiness impossible. lie was tied — 
bound — chained — married — to the >vorn, wrinkled, middle- 
aged woman who face hung like a ghost between him and 
the sun ! 

‘‘ No, better to give him up of her own free will than 
live to endure such misery; forced absolutely to pity him, 
to curse her own idiocy, as perhaps he would be too gener- 
ous to do, and so, through sympathy with his pain, bear his 
burden in addition to her own. Better give him up, teach 
him gradually to content himself with friendship ; aye, be 
the one to show him that in Mary he would find peace and 
rest for both present and future. 

And now it seemed that she had indeed acted her part 


THE ENB OF OUR ROMAHCE:^ 


249 


well : she had convinced him that he could hope only for 
her esteem. Had he, without aid or counsel from her, 
turned for consolation towards Mary ? Had be recognized, 
as Violet believed she had done, indisputable signs, unwit- 
tingly betrayed, that the girl had crowned him the hero of 
her dreams, and been flattered and touched thereby into 
rapid recognition of the truth that his fancy for the elder 
cousin was a delusion ; that here stood the realization of 
hia ideal ? 

It looked so, Violet thought, as she recalled that scene 
in the studio. She went back over the events of the past 
week. Why, since Mary Danvers’s arrival, she had never 
once found it difficult, even in their tUe-d-tUes^ to keep the 
conversation from the perilous ground to which several 
times before he had led it forward ! More and more 
patiently he had accepted the terms on which she had told 
him their intercourse must remain — friendship. 

And, during these last ten days, Mary’s manner to him 
had undergone a complete change : she was never shy in 
his presence now, never unnaturally gay one moment, and 
moody, sometimes almost abrupt, at another ; she showed 
her pleasure at his visits, and frankly took her share of his 
society. Ah, she had gone beyond the region of doubts 
and fears ; she was lulled into security so sweet that no 
reflection came ; a repose where she just floated passively 
on. Violet knew ! During that period at the villa, after 
his illness, had it not been the same for a little while with 
herself ? But what a triple fool she was to compare her 
idyl to Mary’s ! Mary a girl, with a right to dream — and 
she an elderly woman — oh, an old maid, who might almost 
have been a grandmother to-day, if fate had allowed her to 
love and marry as early as most American girls. 

Wanted to cry, did she? Well, there should be no 
exhibition of lachrymose weakness — she had borne enough 
from her own folly — there should be an end ! And Violet 
shook her clenched hand anew at the image in the mirror. 
It had grown her habit to hold bitter monologues before 
her glass, and now, on this tenth night, which completed 
that round of useless misery, she had come home from a 
ball additionally angered with herself because aware that 
she had tried to forget trouble in the pleasure of Aylmer’s 
society. 

“ You look as if you were painted,” she informed the 
11 * 


250 


‘‘ THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:^ 


image. As for your eyes — they are disgraceful ! But 
you are just as much a pretense — a ludicrous, ridiculous 
pretense — as old Mrs. Sinclair, with her dyed hair and her 
made-up brows. Keep me fretting in this way, and I’ll 
very soon show’ you yourself as wrinkled and yellow as she 
would be if somebody rubbed off the red and white — you 
caricature of youth, you sort of original mummy that has 
had color left in it by some wonderful nowaday forgot- 
ten process !” 

She laughed aloud, but I think a burst of tears would 
have followed that tirade against the satin-robed, jewel- 
crowned reflection, had she not been roused by Mary’s 
voice calling : 

‘‘ I hear you ; may I come in ? I have been awake 
ever so long, but was afraid to disturb you ; since you are 
laughing, let me come and laugh too.” 

In sixty seconds by the clock, Violet Cameron went 
through every imaginable phase of emotion, from a long- 
ing to mutilate her own face till its mocking beauty should 
no longer torture her by its arrogant assertion against the 
years, to an insane desire to open the door suddenly, spring 
on the girl w’aiting beyond and do her some deadly harm 
then and there ! 

The very madness, the positive imbecility of her fancies, 
brought her back to reason, as it does the rest of us in 
similar crazed moments, else the chronicle of crime would 
increase until scores upon scores of additional daily sheets 
were all too few to contain the list. 

Come in, you naughty girl,” said Violet, softly ; and 
Mary appeared upon the threshold, looking like a nymph 
or a dryad in her long white gown, with her wavy hair 
vailing her shoulders. “What do you mean by being 
awake at this hour ? I w^ould scold, only you look so 
pretty I’ve not the heart.” 

“ How the light hurts my eyes !” cried Mary, holding 
up both hands to protect them. “ And, oh, how beautiful 
you are ! You must be like Mary Stuart or Semiramis ” 

“ Or Helen of Troy, or some other bad woman w^hom 
you’ve no business to have heard of,” interrupted Violet. 
“ I wonder, when people want to find comparisons for me, 
why they always choose the most dreadful women in all 
history ?” 

She was thinking of that night in the autumn — oh, how 


« THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:'^ 


251 


far off it appeared ; how the reflection of its moonlight 
seemed to scorch her brain, soft as it had appeared then ; 
how every sight and sound repeated itself in a flash, with 
all its sweetness turned to pain ! — that night on the terrace 
of the Magnoletti villa, when she had laughed at Aylmer’s 
unfortunate comparisons — laughed without any bitterness ; 
sore and angry as the recollection made her now. 

I don’t believe they were bad,” cried Mary ; other 
women invented the stories out of jealousy ! Oh, the light 
and the dazzle of your diamonds — and you still more — 
quite blind me !” 

‘‘ Go back into your room, and I’ll come as soon as I 
have got out of this impossible gown ; oh dear, I can’t un- 
fasten it, and Clarice has gone to bed.” 

See what a famous waiting-maid I make,” said Mary ; 
‘‘ only come into my chamber — I can’t bear this light. I 
will take in a dressing-gown — here is one ! What pretty 
robes-de-chaynhre you always have — don’t say I’m not be- 
ginning to talk French — only it must be sinful to spend so 
much money on a thing just to wrap round one !” 

“ Bless me, mouse, whatever is the matter with you 
asked Violet. You are usually the most demure of mice, 
and here you are chattering as fast as a monkey.” 

‘‘ I don’t know why,” said Mary ; I was gloomy 
enough a little while ago, though I couldn’t have given any 
reason for that mood. I can for my present elated one — it 
is you and your beauty.” 

By this time they were in Mary’s room, and Violet 
seated in a low chair near the window, while her cousin 
unlaced her dress. 

Do you never feel sad ?” continued Mary. I have 
often thought your high spirits must just be for society, 
but when I heard you laughing so heartily in there all by 
yourself, I knew I had been mistaken. To be sure, you 
may well laugh — you have everything in the world.” 

“Don’t envy me my ‘everything’ too much,” replied 
Violet, recollecting Avhat had caused her laughter. 

“ Envy you — no — I hope I am not capable of that ! 
I’hough, after all, I don’t know ! I am forever finding out 
I am so much more wicked than I dreamed possible,” sighed 
Mary. 

“ I am afraid that is what very often happens to most 
of us,” returned Violet, recalling the insane impulses which 


252 


“ TEE END OF OUR ROMANCE, 


had flitted through her mind when Mary’s sweet young 
voice roused her from her bitter reverie. 

Mary sighed again so dolefully that Violet, remember- 
ing how at her age one is given to exaggerate any wrong 
thought till in one’s penitence it almost assumes the propor- 
tions of a crime, added : 

Don’t groan as if you had a murder on your soul, my 
dear ! Bad thoughts may come without any fault of ours 
— all we have to do is not to act upon them. I remember 
reading a saying of an eccentric Wesleyan preacher who 
lived earl)^ in the century in America — Lorenzo Dow — that 
I have always considered very expressive : ‘We can’t hin- 
der the birds flying over our heads, but we can keep them 
from building nests in our hair.’ ” 

“ Oh, I must recollect that — it is excellent,” said Mary. 

“ Is it not ? Fancy, I repeated it once to my dear old 
Miss Bronson, and she begged me never to quote it again, 
for it sounded really vulgar.” 

“ I suppose if a bishop had made the remark she would 
have called it sublime,” said Mary. 

“You have hit the truth exactly,” returned Violet. 
“ Really, mouse, you are such a quiet little thing that you 
often quite startle me by the way you read people’s char- 
acters.” 

“I didn’t know I could,” said Mary. “Any way, you 
needn’t be afraid of having yours read.” 

“ I wish somebody could make me understand it,” re- 
plied Violet. “I don’t suppose it amounts to much, but it 
puzzles me more every day I live. Dear me, small one, it 
is a great comfort to talk to you. One doesn’t have to dot 
every i and cross every t — you comprehend at half a word.” 

“ I’m so glad you like me !” exclaimed Mary, sitting 
down on a footstool at Violet’s feet, and leaning her head 
against her cousin’s knee. The shutters were open ; the 
moon cast a soft radiance through the chamber — heightened 
Violet’s beauty into a mysterious splendor and turned 
Mary’s thick-falling hair to dusky gold. 

“ You look like a Sibyl !” cried the girl, gazing up at 
her cousin with the admiration it is so pretty to see one 
woman bestow upon another. 

“And I think I must have you painted as Una,” returned 
Violet, gayly. “ And now that we have finished our mutual 
compliments, tell me what was the reason you lay awake 


THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:'^ 


253 


into tlie small hours, instead of being fast asleep like a sage 
damsel ?” 

“ No reason, unless because I was goose enough to drink 
tea after dinner — that always keeps me awake.” 

Oh, you practical little wretch !” cried Violet. I 
thought the moonlight would inspire you with some poetical 
confession.” 

‘‘ I haven’t any to make — girls ought not to have,” said 
Mary, with a dash after the primness wherewith she had a 
habit of hedging herself in. 

‘‘ Oh, my dear, if one did only what one ought !” replied 
Violet. ‘‘Well, at least tell me what you were thinking 
about.” 

It might be a long while before another opportunity to 
get at her young relative’s thoughts and feelings would 
offer so favorable as this. Violet wanted to do it — not to 
force the girl into any avowals which later she might regret, 
but to crush her own folly with proofs uncontrovertible ; 
and the very fact that something within her shrank from 
the work rendered Violet the more determined. 

“ Thinking ? All sorts of things, or dreaming rather, I 
suppose,” said Mary. Then she was silent for a little. 
Suddenly she moved her head impatiently to and fro on 
Violet’s knee, and continued, in a slow, reflective tone, 
oddly at variance with her restless movement : “ It is very 
difficult to be a girl.” 

“ My dear, it strikes me it would be more difficult to be 
anything else when Nature had arranged the matter,” re- 
turned Violet, laughing outright. 

“ Oh, you know what I meant ! I never can get my 
thoughts to express themselves correctly,” said Maiy, drum- 
ming on Violet’s knee with the fingers of her right hand. 

“ Now, what is one of the things, for instance, that you 
find so difficult, mouse ?” asked Violet. 

“Oh, I don’t know that I could put any of them 
straight, and if I did, I suppose they would sound dread- 
fully silly,” said Mary ; and now she beat Violet’s knee 
with her little clenched fist. 

“ But we agreed long ago that we would say as many 
foolish things to each other as we pleased, just as a relief 
from Slaving always to talk wisely and decorously before 
Eliza,” urged Violet. 


254 


“ THE END OF OUB ROMANCES 


^‘I’m sure she is very good and kind, but oh, how 
awfully stilted and imjDossible !” cried Mary. 

“ She was everything to me when I sorely needed a 
friend,’’ said Violet. arn attached even to her pecu- 
liarities. I would not change her any more than one would 
change an old-fashioned grandmother. Bless me ! it is 
lucky she does not hear my comparison !” 

“ I am sure she never even thinks in words of less than 
ten syllables.” 

‘‘ Dreams in hexameters, I am certain,” said Violet. 

But now about your nonsensical thoughts, puss, and the 
difficulties you find in being a girl — though I don’t know 
how we are to remedy that misfortune.” 

Don’t make me laugh, else I’ll not tell you. But I 
don’t believe I can, even if I try.” 

‘‘Just pour out the fancies pell-mell ; perhaps I can find 
the heads and tails — oh ! shade of Eliza, forgive me ! — 
caput and caudal extremities,” said Violet ; and then felt 
vexed with her own weakness for keeping aloof from the 
truth, of which she wanted to be convinced beyond the pos- 
sibility of doubt. The hour of conviction had arrived — 
something told her this — a conviction which must aid her 
to carry out unflinchingly the stern resolves wffiich she 
knew were the only sensible ones in her case — must make 
an additional reason, in fact, for her to put by, cast out, 
trample down, the foolish dreams of the past week, since 
their indulgence would not only render her own future 
doubly desolate when reality came, as come it must, but 
w'ould blight the heart and happiness of this girl, who had 
youth and early womanhood in her reach — all the dearly- 
prized gifts which Violet had lost — lost, too, without ever 
having had the opportunity to enjoy in their fullness. 

“ Come, now !” she persisted. “ About this hardship of 
being a girl ! Well, girls are ‘cribbed, cabined, and con- 
fined ’ — there is no doubt of that.” 

“Just it,” said Mary, in that slow, introspective, think- 
ing-aloud tone. “ Why, everything is improper, even to 
wonder about — yet it seems so natural. How is one to 
help it, though one is a girl ? Now men are not troubled 
in that way ! They may be fond of — I mean they may like 
a person, and tell themselves so at the first glance — and we 
only call that manly — but girls !” 


THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:^ 


255 


‘‘ Yes, girls ?” returned Violet, in an insinuatingly in- 
quiring voice, as Mary paused. 

‘‘You know I don’t mean me,” Mary hastened to add, 
explicit if not elegant. “I don’t know what set me think- 
ing about it all — some book I’ve been reading, perhaps.” 

“ I dare say — some book — well ?” 

“ And a girl mustn’t think about liking a man, no mat- 
ter how much attention he may have shown her, until he 
tells her outright that — that he loves her. Oh, now I know 
what set me off in such a silly way !” cried Mary, in a tone 
of relief. “ It was Eliza Bronson. She said, d propos to 
some novel, that no young lady with a well-regulated mind 
would permit herself to think of a man until she was be- 
trothed to him ; and as for loving him, well, that she 
seemed to consider would be indelicate until they were 
safely married — she did, upon my word !” 

“ I have no doubt of it,” replied Violet ; “but you and 
I may have our private opinions, and express them to each 
other, even if we refrain from shocking the good Eliza by 
promulgating the same. I am sure that phrase is fine 
enough to content even her !” 

Still with the same effort to keep the conversation upon 
that footing of half-jest — but now not from any shrinking 
to hear the truth which she must arrive at — only to prevent 
Mary’s suspecting the force of her own disclosures, and so 
suddenly shutting her heart over hei^' secret, like a sensitive 
plant closing at the breath of a breeze which stirs its leaves 
too roughly. 

“ I don’t think it is fair !” ejaculated Mary, still pursu- 
ing the train of her reflections. “ And yet a girl does feel 
ashamed if she finds herself thinking that a man likes her, 
though he may have shown it so plainly she could not help 
knowing.” 

“I see no reason whatever for shame,” rejoined Violet, 
as her cousin’s speech faltered, and found no conclusion. 
“ Not the slightest ! No shame either, in admitting frank- 
ly to her own soul that she likes him in return ! Come, 
you see how bold I am ; you need not be afraid of shock- 
ing me by any such thoughts — I should say theories,” she 
added, and Mary’s quick response proved that her substitu- 
tion of the latter word had been a comfort. 

“ Yes, theories — that expresses it ! I suppose one 
ought not to read so many novels — Miss Bronson says so !” 


256 


‘‘ THE END OF OUR ROMANCES 


‘‘Of course! But though she keeps ‘Sismondi,’ or 
some other tiresomely wise book, open on her table, I have 
discovered that she generally has a romance hidden in the 
drawer. Our pattern Eliza is as artful in her way as the 
rest of us ! Mouse, don’t be troubled — read your novels, 
and indulge in your thoughts ” 

“ Theories,” amended Mary. 

“ Exactly — theories ! Where were we in our discus- 
sion ? As usual, when women try to theorize, we grow so 
discursive that we lose the thread of our sermon every 
other minute !” 

“ I haven’t lost it,” said Mary, eagerly, quite at ease 
now, and finding great relief in putting forth her thoughts, 
since Violet had found such a convenient, generalizing term 
under which to class them. “ I think the sort of girl who 
fancies, every time any man pays her a compliment — and 
men are so absurd about that — it vexes me — do they sup- 
pose we are all idiots ?” 

“ Most human beings are, mouse ; but in your energy 
you let your sentence evaporate in a parenthesis !” 

“Yes — pays her a compliment — I know where I was! 
Well, plenty of girls think the man must be in love. Now, 
that is downright silly. I’ve no patience with such non- 
sense !” 

“Nor I ! But we are talking of sensible girls — girls so 
certain of their own desire to do and he- right, that they are 
not afraid to probe their hearts away down to the bottom. 
Now, when such a girl has reason to believe a man loves 
her, she is neither indelicate nor foolish in considering the 
matter and asking herself point-blank if it is true that 
she ” 

“ Likes him,” put in Mary, hastening away from the 
dangerous word Violet had ruthlessly employed. 

“ But the type of girl we are talking of wouldn’t reach 
that point unless the man had given her good reason.” 

“ Just so ! And if ho stops there — doesn’t say outright 

what his looks and Oh, you know what I want to 

say !” 

“ Of coui;se I do ! I am always meaning to write a 
novel which shall turn on that very position. I am always 
meaning to do so many things that I never accomplish !” 

“ Oh, and you could write such a beautiful one. I never 


THE END OF OUR ROMANCE:^ 


257 


heard anybody talk like you. I am sure you’re a genius, 
Violet.” 

‘‘ I have not the slightest doubt of the fact, mouse ! 
Well, I am making a chapter of my novel now. Let me see 
if your theories can’t help me thoroughly to understand my 
heroine. She always gets so complex that she puzzles me 
hopelessly, else I should long ago have presented her to the 
world in three volumes.” 

‘‘ Very well ! Put it that she has reason to believe the 
man likes her — so much reason that she knows she has a 
right to believe so, though she does reproach herself for 
thinking it, because he has never said it out in so many 
words.” 

‘‘Never revealed his passion, you mean; don’t be so 
prosaic when you are helping to compose a novel, mouse ! 
Surely there is no shame to her for thinking — for knowing?” 

“ Oh, but if she began to think that after all she had 
made a mistake ; if he did not speak — if ” 

“ I won’t contemplate that possibility for m}’’ heroine,” 
interrupted Violet. “In her case, the hero is a true, honest, 
earnest man ; he would be incapable of the meanness of 
trifling. He might wait — circumstances might force him. 
Dear me, if she were very young, he might doubt if she 
could know her own heart yet ! Why, he might half try 

to fancy an older woman for a little ” She was going 

too far; she stopped; added quickly: “No, not that for 
our hero, though even heroes have their weaknesses, else 
they would not be men. But the sort of man we are de- 
scribing ” 

“ Imagining,” suggested Mary, softly. “What does he 
do, Violet ?” 

“ He waits — to be certain, both for himself and her ; 
then some day he comes to our little heroine and tells the 
whole story,” said Violet, and her voice was like the echo 
of sweet music. 

“ To be certain of himself ! Then he might go !” cried 
Mary, indignantly. “I would never listen if he had to 
wait to be sure ; I mean our heroine shan’t, in the novel ! 
Why, she would despise him and be ashamed of herself.” 

“Well, well! There might be other reasons — plenty! 
He might not be sure of her feelings — afraid to startle her, 
not just in a position to marry at once.” 

“ Oh, yes, that might be,” said Mary, with a sudden 


258 


‘‘ THE EFD OF OUR ROMANCE:^ 


reflection of contentment in her voice. ^^It would account 
for any little odd changes in his manner that had seemed 
like caprice sometimes !” 

“ And he could not be capricious, of course ! No, no ; 
the fitting moment arrives at last, when everything is made 
clear, and the dream becomes a blessed reality.” 

“ Reality,” echoed Mary, then became silent for a time. 

And Violet knew the truth ; there remained no possi- 
bility for her foolish heart to cheat her reason by declaring 
those intuitions which days and days before had warned 
her, to be mere suspicious fancies — the coinage of her own 
restless brain. She had been determined to reach such 
absolute confirmation that her weakness could no longer 
plead the lack of proof — she had gained it now ! 

Somehow the very sound of content in the girl’s tones, 
revealing the comfort she had derived from her cousin’s 
words, which showed her that her sensation of maidenly 
shame was uncalled for, roused Violet to a positive frenzy 
of bitterness. 

Why should she sacrifice herself to this child — this 
baby ? Why should she not snatch the happiness within 
her reach, enjoy it to the full? At least when it faded she 
could die ! 

Yet all the while, as she looked covertly down into the 
sweet, pure face which, unconscious of her scrutiny, had 
turned towards the window, and was gazing out at the 
white, resplendent moon, it seemed to Violet that she was 
watching, not Mary, but the phantom of her own youth, 
pleading mutely with her for its happiness. 

And Mary, rousing herself from her dreams, looked up, 
still letting her head, with its long vail of moonlight-tinted 
hair, rest upon her cousin’s knee. 

“ I am sure you are tired, and I have been keeping you 
awake to listen to my absurd fancies — theories, I mean,” 
said Mary. “ Why, how pale you are — you are not ill ?” 

‘‘ Only cold,” shivered Violet ; “ so cold — away down 
into my very soul !” 

Mary brought a shawl, folded it carefully about her, 
and kissed her forehead with an affectionate freedom. 

Violet submitted to the caress, frightened by her own 
wicked thoughts ; ashamed too, which was worse. 

‘‘ Kiss me again !” she said suddenly. 

Why, you are shivering yet !” cried Mary. “ You are 


AGAINST FATE, 


2,69 


tired out ! Come and lie down on my bed. I shall be 
worried if you shut yourself up in your room.” 

They lay down and both slept till the moon hung low 
on the horizon, half hidden, so that she was a mere blade 
of light ; then they woke at the same instant, and Violet’s 
first thought, as she felt the soft pressure of her cousin’s 
arms, was one of gratitude that her wicked thoughts had 
fled. 

“ What were you dreaming?” Mary whispered. 

The end of our romance,” Violet replied, and the 
heroine was very happy at the last. Go you to sleep, 
childie !” 

And both slept again. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


AGAIlSrST FATE. 



HE next day came — her day for remaining at 
home and receiving a host of tiresome visits, 
Violet remembered, and felt inclined to shut 
her doors against the whole would, to shut her 
windows against the sun, and sit down in a 
gloom in keeping with the darkness which had fallen upon 
her soul. 

But this feeling was worse than folly, as contemptible 
as that which caused her to shrink this morning from 
Mary’s kiss when she entered before departing to her 
work. She would not sit there idle, making present and 
future more unsupportable by listening to the misanthropic 
complaints of her heart, since it must be admitted it was 
her heart that ached — ached so bitterly. She had no time 
to waste in regrets and repinings — youth might afl:ord to 
do that when trouble came ; but at her age it was necessary 
to be up and doing, trying to make amends for neglected 
opportunities, misspent hours, before the night came, in 
which no man can work. But what was she to do by way 
of being useful ? She could give money — she had always 
done that liberally since she had the power. Tend the 



260 


AGAINST FATE, 


sick, visit the poor — common sense told her that a paid 
nurse could perform the first duty much better, and obser- 
vation had shown her that the poor decidedly object to 
such inspection from the rich, and gird under advice as 
sorely as their finer neighbors. 

Read, study, paint, practice her music ? All very well ; 
but those pursuits could no more fill up life than indulging 
in a spinster’s legitimate outlets for affection — dogs and 
cockatoos — could bring contentment. All her attemj^ts at 
usefulness, at occupation, would be just as many make- 
believes : therefore why essay to deceive herself into hop- 
ing she could find peace through these means? She was a 
poor, weak, silly thing : her romance, her maudlin poetry, 
as much out of keeping with the mental state befitting her 
j^ears as the physical appearance of youth, which even this 
morning looked at her from the glass, untouched by sleep- 
lessness and trouble, as if it were quite independent of the 
mind it held in its keeping. Ah, there was Miss Bronson 
knocking at the door — Miss Bronson, commonplace as a 
type of existence itself. So much the better : the com- 
panionship might be of service in controlling her ridicu- 
lous mood, and she would keep to it. Go out with Eliza, 
shop a little, visit the charity-school a little, talk gossip and 
religion a little, cheapen a parrot, discuss the merits of 
foulards and friends in the same breath — go decorously 
through the decorous round of employments natural and 
fitting to old maids like herself and Eliza. 

She carried her mocking resolve into effect, then came 
back to a tete-d-tete breakfast with her friend, for Mary 
took that meal with the Vaughtons in order to save time, 
and Eliza waxed jubilant over their delightful morning- — 
they had done so much ! it was so pleasant to be together ! 
— and her listener reflected that she might accept this 
morning as a type of her future. Oh, the years ! the 
years ! 

Finding herself moaning anew, Violet devised a new 
punishment — she sat down at the pianoforte and practiced 
German duets with Miss Bronson ; and of all created 
isounds, those were what she loathed the most ! Altogether, 
when the hour arrived for visitors to begin their intrusion, 
Violet could feel that she had inflicted about as severe a 
season of pin-and-needle torture upon her troublesome 


AOAmST FATE. 


261 


heart and imagination as could have been devised, or even 
their weakness merited. 

People came and went in constant succession, drank 
chocolate, talked nothings, grinned and grimaced, and Vio- 
let decided that she grinned and grimaced and uttered 
platitudes as well as anybody. She joined in the excite- 
ment over the news that Cica, the new ballerina, was ex- 
pected, disputing vehemently whether the sylph could really 
stand poised forty seconds on the great toe of her left foot 
or only thirty-five ; went into the depths of despair because, 
after all, the municipality would give no subvention to the 
Pergola. Oh, she had proved herself as accomplished a 
butterfly with the soul of a grub as any of her neighbors, 
and could be content. 

Then, into the midst of the chocolate drinking, and the 
scandalmongering, and the flirtations, and the vapidity, 
floated ]Nrina Magnoletti, and in her wake came Laurence 
Aylmer, and the touch of his hand and the glance of his 
eyes sent a thrill through Violet which shook her out of her 
elaborately-studied inanity, and caused her such bitter 
wrath that for an instant she was almost ready to visit it on 
him by chilling words or covert slights. 

Was she mad? Did she want to publish her secret, her 
shame, not only for his reading but for the delectation of 
her fellow-grubs with butterfly wings? Who was he? 
Why, the friend that had saved her life — her friend Lau- 
rence, to be received as he always had been, frankly, cor- 
dially ! lie might amuse himself with insects, but he was 
neither butterfly nor grub — he was a man, with aspirations, 
resolutions, a career ; certain of a man’s weaknesses clinging 
to him, no doubt — he would be superhuman else — but at 
least among the best specimens of his kind ; and she was 
glad to see him, very glad — her friend Laurence ! 

He, like everybody else, remarked upon her high spirits 
and marveled at her heightened beauty. The women de- 
cided that Miss Cameron had taken to rouge at last, and 
both men and women decided in addition that the whispers 
in the air must be true : she had chosen a lover — Carlo 
Magnoletti, of course — and her sisterly cordiality with Ayl- 
mer and her affectionate demonstrations to Nina were cor- 
rect religious tributes to the goddess of appearances, so 
well paid that nothing was left to be desired. A woman 
who sacrificed so strictly at the great deity’s shrine might 


262 


AGAINST FATE. 


have twenty lovers among her lady friends’ husbands behind 
the altar if she saw fit ; as long as she behaved as she did 
now, her fellow- worshipers need see only the clouds of 
perfume rising from the censer which she swung so grace- 
fully before their eyes. 

Nina and Aylmer appeared late, and gradually the other 
visitors departed, and they were left alone with Miss 
Cameron. Then the professor was announced, and the 
three exclaimed in wonder, for receptions were his aver- 
sion. 

I concluded your menagerie would have dispersed by 
this time,” he said ; “ and 1 knew I should be busy to- 
morrow.” 

“You might have come the day after,” said Aylmer, 
with laughing impertinence. 

“ There’s a simpleton in this room,” cried the professor, 
frowning affectionately at him. “It is not old Schmidt, 
and all simpletons are males ” 

“ Don’t trouble yourself to repeat such well-known 
facts in natural history,” broke in Violet. “How nice of 
you to give me the surprise of a visit to-day ! I have not 
seen you*for an age. What have you been doing?” 

“ I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” returned the pro- 
fessor ; “ leave your and the marchesa’s perfections and 
Laurence Aylmer’s sins behind me for a week or ten 
days.” 

“ What a shame !” pronounced Violet. “ And where 
and why are you rushing off in this barbarous fashion ?” 

“ As for the where, to Venice and Trieste,” replied he ; 
“ as for the why, a company wants to buy some land I own 
in Austria. These are matters which must be regulated 
personally between me and their president. I won’t jour- 
ney all the way to Vienna, and, as he is ailing, I can’t 
make my old friend come here ; so we compromise on Tri- 
este. I wish you were going.” 

“ I wish you owned no land, and I wish, since you do, 
it was so worthless nobody would buy it,” cried Violet. 

“ There’s friendship for you !” laughed the professor— 
the very word sounded cold as ice to Violet. “Laurence, I 
shan’t ask you to go with me.” 

“ I shouldn’t if you did,” said Aylmer ; and he was in- 
dulging in a private reflection as it chanced, roused by that 
word the professor had employed. There might easily bo 


AGAINST FATE, 


263 


such a thing as carrying a good resolution too far. Friend- 
ship ! His forbearance was exhausted ; he could continue 
this pretense no longer ! Before the professor’s return he 
would tell his story — try as Violet might, she should not 
avoid the hearing ; and she must care a little — she could 
not banish him without a hope ! Oh, how beautiful she 
looked to-day ! somewhat tired now, perhaps, but, if possi- 
ble, all the more lovely ; only so calm, so composed — that 
irked him. 

And Nina was upbraiding the professor. 

At least you might have begged me to run away with 
you. I have always wanted to : ask Carlo. You have no 
eyes or ears except for Violet, and I hate her !” 

You are so close in my heart that I see and hear you 
whenever it beats. Don’t say I can’t talk poetry !” cried 
the professor. 

“Nina,” said Violet, “can’t you and Carlo dine with 
me i^-morrow night?” 

“I can,” Nina answered ; “I may as well admit now 
that I had already made up my mind to do so. Carlo is 
going off to some horrid dinner where only his own species 
is invited.” 

“ Are you one of the unfortunates, Mr. Aylmer ?” Vio- 
let inquired. 

“ No ; it is some half-political affair.” 

“ Then, as I intend to make the professor dine here, 
whether lie will or not, please come too. I will ask, let me 
see — whom shall I ask? We shall be four ladies — ah, Gil- 
bert Warner. Nina, I can’t have any of your Italian 
adorers. Now it is agreed, so let nobody forget. Here 
comes Miss Bronson ! Eliza, prepare your pocket-hand- 
kerchief — the professor is going away for a week.” 

And then, to prove that it is natural for human beings 
to persecute defenseless animals, they began to tease the 
spinster, and the professor went on his knees and quoted 
verses, and the whole group talked a great deal of non- 
sense, as even sages must and will. 

The trio departed ; Violet dressed, and went out to 
dine, then to the last act of the opera, then to some festive 
gathering, where, out of compliment to Lent, even the re- 
lief of dancing was omitted ; then home and to bed among 
the small hours, but not to sleep, tired as she was — over- 
tired, she told herself — nothing else ailed her. She was 


264 


AGAINST FATE. 


not fretting — not moaning ; she just felt cold and lethar- 
gic, and inexpressibly weary. 

The next morning Mary received directions, when she 
went to the studio, to give Violet’s invitation to Gilbert 
Warner, and make sure that he would come, previously en- 
gaged or not. So Mary had to send one of the workmen 
to ask Warner to come in to her atelier — half glad to have 
so good an excuse — half ashamed to request a visit on any 
grounds, for during these last days Warner’s abrupt 
changes of manner (the more noticeable in a person of his 
even temperament) had troubled the girl exceedingly. He 
came at once, but just to show that her message had caused 
him no perturbation, he carried his palette on his thumb, 
and his mahl-stick in his hand, and Mary’s evil genius 
prompted her to regard this as a method of hinting that 
she had disturbed his labors. 

I beg your pardon for interrupting you,” she said, en- 
veloping herself in the quaint stiffness habitual with her 
when embarrassed. I begged Violet to write you a note, 
but she said she had not time. It is only she wants you to 
be sure and come and dine to-night — she will take no re- 
fusal — along with Mr. Aylmer and Madame Magnoletti — 
because the professor is going away — I mean, of course he 
is to be there — and she wishes you all to meet him.” 

Having hastily enunciated this not over-clear explana- 
tion, Mary began wetting her clay as eagerly as if it had 
been left dry for a week, and, as it was too wet already, an 
ill-advised pat she gave the bust sorely disti^’bed the sym- 
metry of its Grecian nose. The effect was exceedingly 
ludicrous ; she and Warner saw it at the instant : he was 
deciding to refuse the invitation, and vshe wondering if he 
noticed how her hands trembled. Both were excited and 
nervous, and they suddenly burst out laughing, then looked 
at each other, half-pouting, half-appeased, like two chil- 
dren. 

‘‘Psyche with a cocked-up nose !” said Warner. 

“It is your fault. I was just turning round to see 
what made you so long in answering,” retorted Mary. 

“ I think — I am afraid I have an engagement,” he said, 
recovering his gravity at once. 

“ Cousin Violet will never forgive you if you leave her 
with so many unsquired ladies at her dinner-table,” Mary 
urged. 


AGAINST FATE. 


265 


Oh, indeed,” said he, waxing cross again; ^‘I am 
sorry I can’t make myself useful in filling up a gap.” 

Mary, fearful her speech had sounded rude, forgot her 
irritation in penitence and regret. 

I am sure you know how cordially Violet likes you,” 
she said ; “ please do not disappoint her !” 

She looked at him and smiled, blushing a little ; he 
could not resist that half-appealing glance ; forgot his sus- 
picions — forgot Laurence Aylmer for the moment. 

Will you say that you would remember to care if I did 
not come?” he asked, with a certain seriousness under his 
playful manner. 

I wish you would accept,” Mary said, honestly, then 
relapsed into her stiffness. He had been so odd and 
changeable of late, that she was afraid of seeming undigni- 
fied or forward if she betrayed too much solicitude over a 
matter which ought to be treated as a trifle. 

Then I will,” he said. 

And now she smiled so cordially that the sunshine 
lighted his soul. They began to talk — of the bust, the 
weather, no matter what ; any subject would serve, and, 
who knows ? the conversation might have drifted on and 
on, until Warner’s heart would have overleaped bounds, 
and the clouds been dispersed so effectually that any later 
gathering into gloom would become impossible. But Fate 
would not permit this ; she sent a messenger in the person 
of old Miss Vaughton, who suddenly appeared on the 
threshold of her salon with a bunch of flowers in one hand 
and a head of lettuce in the other. Cook had just come 
home from market, and Miss Vaughton had brought the 
roses to leave as a friendly gift, and the lettuce to exhibit 
as a marvel of size considering the season. 

Nor would she retire in search of some household occu- 
pation, as she usually did at this hour ; no indeed. She 
called her woman to take the lettuce, and began to arrange 
the flowers in a vase. Nor would she be taciturn and in- 
offensive, according to custom. She insisted on talking. 
Even her loquacity might have been endured without call- 
ing down Warner’s secret maledictions on her venerable 
head, had she been content to remain deaf as ordinary, in 
which case, whether other people talked or not during her 
monologue, she woidd have been none the wiser ; but she 
heard in that diabolical fashion deaf people wdl now and 
12 


266 


AGAINST FATE. 


then, and what she did not catch she would have explained 
— she, always the mildest and most deprecatory creature 
in existence ! 

She stayed and she chattered until Warner, mentally de- 
claring his belief that the devil had entered her, betook him- 
self to his studio in despair, and fell a-dreaming instead of 
doing his work in a sensible fashion. 

During the afternoon, while he w^as wondering what ex- 
cuse he could devise for paying a second visit, in order to 
be certain that the sunshine still lasted, the professor came 
in to look at his picture, and, before he had finished criti- 
cising it, sent desolation to Warner’s soul by exclaiming : 

I thought that daw’dling Aylmer was just behind me ! 
I told him not to interrupt Miss Danvers’s work any 
longer.” 

Five minutes passed ; the professor criticised and 
praised ; ten minutes passed ! he was talking still, and 
Warner trying to listen and answer — but no Aylmer 
appeared. The sunshine was all gone ; the young artist 
drifting down into a gloom black as night ! 

Presently the offender entered, but Mary accompanied 
him, and she looked sraijing and happy — and oh, surely she 
was blushing ; ay, and that Aylmer fairly whispering in 
her ear to the very door ! 

‘‘ Since you were to be interrupted, Mr. Warner, I let 
myself be persuaded to come too,” said Mary, serene in the 
belief that the atmosphere of the morning still continued. 

“ I am fortunate that such was the case,” he replied, and 
the very sound of his voice warned Mary that they were 
back in the chill realm of discord. She felt vexed wdth 
him, ashamed of caring, ready to disbelieve Violet’s hopeful 
theories, and quite forgot to examine the picture, in her in- 
terest in something Aylmer was telling her about Sweden, 
apropos to a sketch of Warner’s. 

The painter was inclined to refuse the invitation to 
dinner after all ; but that would be rude now, so he 
dressed and went to the house at the appointed hour. The 
marchesa was already there, having come very early, but 
the two remaining guests had not arrived. The. respite 
proved of no service to Warner, however. The other three 
ladies made him welcome, but Mary did not choose to 
appear forward, and sat almost silent, never once looking 
in his direction after she had returned his salutations. 


AGAINST FATE. 


267 


At length the professor’s voice sounded in the anteroom, 
deep and agitated, like the notes of a bass drum. 

Potztausend ! That pamphlet I put in my pocket for 
the Fraulein. I had it when I got out of the hack ! Run, 
run, you blessed Antonio, and see if it is on the stairs ! 
Laurence, you needn’t wait, announce yourself while I get 
out of this confounded great-coat, the builder of which 
ought to be consigned to the rack — the rack !” 

The ladies’ laughter from the salon replied. Laurence 
pushed back the curtains and entered, laughing also. 

“ Mr. Aylmer,” he announced. “ Miss Cameron, if I 
do your footman’s duty I shall expect to be paid accord- 
ingly.” 

Ah, Mary could brighten now — Warner saw that. She 
could receive and answer this new-comer’s greetings with 
evident pleasure. Violet saw it too, and thought how rap- 
idly this change had come about from the old shyness in 
the presence of — ah, yes — her friend Laurence ! 

Then, the professor having freed himself from the great- 
coat, made his entrance, dropped his handkerchief before 
he reached the center of the salon, and, in stooping to pick 
it up, turned his back to the group, and was astounded by 
hearing a second burst of laughter, in which all the specta- 
tors joined. Neither ill-humor nor the demands of courtesy 
could have hindered any human creature from yielding to 
merriment. The professor was dressed in correct evening 
costume, even to the flower in his button-hole, but one of 
the swallow-tails of his coat was wanting — had been cut off 
close up to the body of the garment, presenting an effect 
indescribably ludicrous. 

The professor raised himself, turned a wondering face 
on the group, and cried : 

Have you all been taking laughing-gas ?” 

They tried to check their mirth, but found it impossible ; 
so Violet hurried forward, seized the savant by the shoulder, 
and stationed him so that he could see his own image in a 
mirror. 

What have you been doing ?” she demanded. 

The sage was betrayed into one brief expression of sur- 
piise, then he stood and stared at his own reflection, stoical 
as an old Roman. 

“ After all,” said he, slowly, it is an improvement. A 
coat with swallow-tails is a ridiculous thing — when you 


268 


AGAINST FATE, 


cut off half the caudal extremity it can only be half so ri- 
diculous.” 

As the laughter gradually died away, he condescended 
to explain. He had been busy with some chemical experi- 
ment, and wanting a piece of cloth at a critical moment, lan 
into his bedroom, scissors in hand, to cut a bit off an old 
coat he had left hanging on the bed-post. The woman, in 
arranging the chamber, had hung his festive costume over 
the ancient garment, and in the gloom, the professor ruth- 
lessly snipped off the left tail and went back to his task, 
becoming so absorbed thei*ein that it grew late before he 
recollected his engagement. He dressed in a great hurry, 
his mind still occupied with his work, and put himself into 
the coat without noticing its disfigurement. 

“ I shall not go home unless you send me, Fraulein,” he 
declared, perfectly unabashed, as he finished his explanation. 

I would try the resources of Antonio’s wardrobe, but he 
is smaller than I, and I suppose my paletot would be as 
objectionable as my present plight ? Come, decide ; will 
you have a mutilated swallow, or shall he fly off and hide 
his shame and misery in his desolate nest ?” 

“If you forgive our lack of generosity in laughing, we 
can easily forgive your lack of caudal appendage,” said she. 

By this time Warner had remembered his sense of 
injury, and Eliza Bronson to be a little shocked at such an 
accident, but the general hilarity soon seized them again. 
Of course they all sat down at table in a most nonsensical 
mood, and Violet did her best to keep the conversation at 
that pitch as long as she could — the more trivial the sub- 
ject the better, in her frame of mind. 

It was a gay evening, but, with the exception of Nina 
and the professor, the gayety required an effort. Eliza 
Bronson felt twinges in her neck which warned her that she 
had taken cold, and should probably have an attack of neu- 
ralgia, and the others were troubled by twinges sharper 
than her physical reminders. 

Aylmer found Miss Cameron’s friendliness too composed 
and frank to be satisfactory. She could have no feeling 
whatever for him. If his love had touched her heart, she 
would find it impossible to preserve this sisterly calm with- 
out a break. It was a new dread, and all the more stinging 
on that account. As for Violet, she had placed Aylmer 
between Nina and Mary, and a dozen times during dinner, 


AGAIN8T FATE, 


269 


perceived fresh evidence of the intimacy which had grown 
lip between her cousin and Laurence, and the open pleas- 
ure which the young girl showed in his conversation. Gil- 
bert Warner saw these signs as plainly as Miss Cameron, 
and reviled his own folly in having come to be tortured in 
this fashion. He chafed and fretted till he felt as if con- 
sumed by fever, and condemned all dinners as hollow 
mockeries, and their present feast the most hollow of all. 

Late in the evening, while Eliza Bronson gratified the 
professor with selections of Wagner’s music, Mary and 
Warner seized the opportunity to bring new clouds between 
themselves by a little disagreement about an article of Lau- 
rence Aylmer’s in a late review : Warner, with elaborate 
candor, admiring the style, but condemning the sentiments 
with polished ferocity ; and Mary, taking the opposite side, 
partly from irritation, partly because she hated injustice, 
and Warner was unjust. Laurence sat at a distance talking 
with Violet and Nina, and Violet received her warning — • 
proof that her careful, persistent efforts to restrain their 
intercourse to the safe grounds of friendship had done its 
work ! 

Nina was telling a story of a marriage which had lately 
taken place between two of her acquaintances. The en- 
gagement had been a long one — the man away in Japan for 
several years. Time and absence, perhaps, undermined his 
affection : at all events, he fell in love with the daughter of 
one of the foreign consuls at Yokohama. He behaved well 
according to his lights : sailed for Europe, the preparations 
for the wedding were made, and it was only at the last 
moment, through the stupidity or malice of a connection 
lately returned from Japan, that the lady learned the truth. 
She taxed her lover with his unfaithfulness, and he told 
her the whole tale, announcing his readiness to fulfill his 
promise — and she married him. 

One would like to have her w^alled-up alive !” cried 
impetuous Nina, as she ended her narrative. 

I blame the man as much as I do her,” said Violet, 
firmly. 

“ And you, Mr. Aylmer ? Now for a masculine view,” 
added Nina. 

“ I cannot blame him,” he answered slowly, rather hesi- 
tatingly, in reality wondering a little over Miss Cameron’s 
remark. Under such circumstances an honorable man 


270 


AGAmST FATE. 


must feel himself guilty — base ! No — he could not speak 
— he must fulfill his vow — kee'p silence utterly ! 

I cannot imagine a greater wrong,” said Violet. ‘‘ To 
a true woman there could be no cruelty like that. His duty 
was to tell her the plain facts, to ask for his freedom. Do 
human beings love or unlove at pleasure ? He was not to 
blame for the weakness of his heart, but he was to blame 
for sacrifi(}ing his own future, bringing a sharper unhappi- 
ness on her than the truth, bad as it might have been, 
could have brought if told in time.” 

Well, I never expected to hear Miss Cameron uphold 
infidelity, eh, Mr. Aylmer?” Nina exclaimed. 

No,” he said constrainedly. 

I do not,” Violet replied. But people make mis- 
takes — even good, honorable, yes, resolute people. Such 
blunders are not always a proof of weakness either.” 

‘‘ It is certain,” said Aylmer, that even people who 
know their own minds as a rule do err in affairs of the 
heart. It is so difficult often to decide what is love, what 
fancy. But if a man mistakes a caprice for a real senti- 
ment, he ought to abide by the consequences.” 

The woman must be blind indeed who could not per- 
ceive it, mad or cruel if she did not free him willingly,” 
said Violet. 

That would be easy enough if she had only taken 
him on probation,” observed Nina, laughing. Men’s 
vanity will not let them believe it, but half the time we 
women are drawn into engagements just because an adorer 
is importunate — one pities him, tries to believe that sym- 
pathy is affection — and so yields.” 

“Very true,” rejoined Violet. “And often, often she 
would gladly find an excuse to draw back ! How thank- 
ful she must be if his heart does speak, and show him, that 
what he thought love was only a fancy ! All he has to do 
is to be honest. Why, he could have no surer, more devoted 
friend in the world than that woman !” 

“I think he would pass a good many uncomfortable 
hours,” said Aylmer. “I suppose, if she showed him that 
she saw the truth and was content, his part would be easy 
enough ; that is, in the case you mention, marchesa, where 
she had only been trying to learn to care for him.” 

“ Yes, perhaps,” Nina replied. 

“He would be put out of all difficulty at once,” said 


AGAINST FATE. 


271 


Violet. ‘^She would not, if a true woman, leave him an 
hour in doubt after she knew the facts. She would speak, 
or so plainly show him that she saw — be his tacit assistance 
in the quarter where he really loved — that he could either 
tell his story or be certain that he might look upon matters 
as already settled.” 

“There may be truth in the often-repeated assertion 
th \i men are fickle,” said Aylmer ; “ thvat special weakness 
bel jg such a sore spot for a man to contemplate in his own 
njttiire, is perhaps a proof.” 

“ No man need be ashamed of making a mistake,” said 
Violet ; “he need only be ashamed of the weakness of not 
acknowledging it.” 

“Very harsh doctrines, if modern women had hearts 
like the heroines in old-fashioned novels,” laughed Nina. 

“ A right doctrine,” said Violet. 

Just then Warner came up to take his leave, and the 
conversation ended. In a few moments the guests were 
gone, and Violet went at once to her room. 

She understood everything now. Aylmer had recog- 
nized the difference between fancy and love — he had feared 
to appear weak or false in her eyes, and so had sou^rht to 
guard his heart against Mary’s smiles. 

“ It is afl clear,” Violet said to her image as she rose 
and stood before the glass, after a long meditation. “ Are 
those tears? Come, I did not know you had been crying ! 
I’ll not scold you — a little nonsense might be admissible as 
long as tliere was a doubt. But you know the truth now, 
you see your way, and you mean to walk steadily therein. 
Fears he may look weak ! No, no — we knew it was only a 
fancy, knew it from the first ! I told you so — wanted it so 
— you are quite at rest, quite satisfied — and he is my friend 
Laurence 1” 

And when the dawn appeared she woke from a mocking 
vision in which he stood beside her, told her that she erred 
— he loved her ! 

“I will cry !” she moaned ; “I have a right — not for 
him, not for my silly dream ! But Fate was cruel to send 
me dreams so late, and it is against Fate, not my heart, 
that I battle !” 


273 


^^SUE SAID good-by:^ 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

^^SHE SAID GOOD-BY.*’ 

WO days went by, which, busy as she kept her- 
self, gave Violet ample leisure for reflection. 
She comprehended that neither anger nor self- 
contempt would hel]3 her case. She must admit 
as a truth that the experience, without which 
she had always said no woman’s life could be complete, 
while believing it would never come to her, had set its in- 
effaceable seal upon the present and future. 

And almost as soon as she had learned that it was Love 
who stood beside her, she had been forced to see that the 
garland in his hand was withered already. Well, faded 
flowers were appropriate, typical of her age ! Ah ! she 
was trying again to be mocking and severe — why should 
she ? Surely she might show a little tenderness to her 
heart — yield a little to the pity she felt for herself. Re- 
nunciation — sacrifice — those were the lessons she must 
learn now ; bitterness and wrath would only render the 
task more difiicult. 

Plow interminable these last eight-and-forty hours ap- 
peared as she looked back over them ; how this present 
day dragged ; how tired she was ; how ashamed of the 
petty irritability which beset her — the desire to turn away 
from Mary’s morning welcome with stinging words, to be 
sharp and abrupt with anybody who approached ! It 
seemed, too, as if every human being near deliberately 
chose that time to be as annoying as possible :• to do what- 
ever ought to be left undone and say everything that ought 
to be left unsaid, from worthy Miss Bronson down to 
Clarice. 

“ My dear,” said Eliza, how pretty Mary grows. 
Really she begins to look very like you when you were 
young — I mean, when you were her age.” 

‘‘ Which comes to the same thing,” returned Violet. 

“ I don’t know if you have noticed — but I have — oh, I 
have been certain of it for some time,” pursued Eliza. 

However limited the range of my mental faculties may 
be, at least I possess the ability of observation — of seeing 



< ‘ SHE SAID G 0 OD-BY. ” 


273 


things clearly. You will own that I can say so much with- 
out betraying undue vanity.” 

“No doubt,” said Violet, and longed to add that she 
had a wonderful faculty for seeing everything wrong, and 
felt more ashamed than ever at this impulse to turn upon a 
creature so defenseless. 

“ She likes him,” sighed Eliza, “ but has only lately dis- 
covered the state of her heart. You may not have observed 
— but I can enlighten you now, for I am sure he likes her — • 
perfectly^sure ! So suitable in every way, is it not ? I am 
so pleased ; you will be too, I know, when you think it over. 
You are surprised — admit it ! Oh, I have kept their little 
secret.” • 

“ Has one been confided to you ?” Violet asked. 

“ No, no, not a word ; it was not necessary. Why, I 
saw from the first how it would be. I hinted it to you in 
the beginning. Oh, you must recollect — now, don’t you 
recollect ?” 

“ I dare say you did.” 

“ J ust refiect ; you must remember.” 

“ Oh, perfectly,” said Violet, desperately plunging into 
the falsehood to get rid of further importunity. 

“Ah, I thought you would. Yes, yes! What does 
Moore say ?” Eliza maundered on, “ ^ There’s nothing half 
so sweet in life ’ How does it run, Violet ?” 

“ I am eighteen years too old to remember,” said Violet. 

“ ‘ Nothing half so sweet ’ Is it sweet, or bright ? 

— as — as — ^Nothing half so ’ Dear me, how very odd 

that I can’t recall it.” 

“ I think I shall go out,” said Violet. 

“I’ll go with you if you don’t mind. There’s noth- 
ing ’ how vexatious ! ^ A peri stood at the garden 

gate ’ Oh, mercy, no !” 

“ Please, Eliza,” broke in Violet, “ do go to the library 
and hunt up Moore if you are in the mood for his sugary 
inanities.” 

Enter Clarice. 

“ Oh, mademoiselle, I am desolated. I beg mademoi- 
selle’s pardon, I so seldom forget, and the letter mademoi- 
selle gave me yesterday quite went out of my mind.” 

Business letters, of great importance too. And on Clar-, 
ice’s heels appeared Antonio. 

12 * 


274 


“ 8HE SAID good-by:^ 


‘‘lam very sorry to tell mademoiselle ” Then a 

long story about the necessity of discharging a gardener. 

“ ‘ There’s nothing half so sweet in life as love’s young 
dream !’ ” sang Eliza, triumphantly, putting her head in at 
the door just after Violet had got rid of the other importu- 
nates. “ Pretty, is it not ?” 

Fate is never satisfied without thrusting an under-cur- 
rent of broad farce into our tragedies. Any human being 
who has suffered knows this — knows, too, how it grates 
and jars, denuding suffering even of the dignity which 
might give a certain support. 

Violet ordered the carriage in desperation, but go with 
her Miss Bronson would, and chattered like a magpie all 
the time. They were passing the Palazzo Rimini when she 
uttered a sudden exclamation : 

“ I am surprised that he visits her — I really am ! 
But he just went in; did you see him, Violet? Mr. 
Aylmer ” 

“ Certainly has a right to visit where he pleases,” in- 
terrupted Violet, and fell to wondering if, after all, Lau- 
rence were less frank and honest than she had thought 
him. But this fancy was only in keeping with her other 
pettiness. She was in a mood to suspect any and every- 
body — to be harsh and unjust. Oh, how contemptible to 
let trouble affect her in thf§ fashion ! 

They drove to the Cascine, Eliza recurring to the com- 
pliments on her own perspicacity, and relating the growth 
of her discovery with “ damnable iteration,” till Violet felt 
she must spring out of the carriage to escape the sound of 
her voice. 

“ I have never said a word until this morning. I did 
not mention Mr. Aylmer’s name, you may be sure — but oh, 
if you had seen how she colored up, and ran away ” 

“ Home, Gregorio !” called Violet to the coachman, 
unable to bear these gnat-stings any longer. 

“ It is early yht. I think I will stop at Mrs. Eaton’s,” 
said Eliza ; “I have not been there for so long.” 

“ I would, by all means,” cried Violet, almost enthusi- 
astically. “ Stop at the Hotel de Russie, Gregorio.” 

“ On the whole, I think I will wait till to-morrow,’^ said 
Eliza. “ Aren’t you a little pale, my dear ? Have you got 
a lieadache ? Oh, my love, here comes Colonel Falkland ! 
Now you can ask him about taking that package to Eng- 


SAID GOOD-BY. 


275 


land for his sister. Gregorio, stop at the corner. Ah, 
Violet, at least I remember things at the right moment, 
ril tell you about Mary when we get home — here comes the 
colonel — she did look so pretty in her blushes. Oh dear ! 
have I lost my handkerchief ?” 

The worthy spinster had selected this morning of all 
others to torment poor Mary as much as she had been wor- 
rying Violet during the last hour. To increase the sting 
of her words, Mary thought she was alluding to Gilbert 
Warner, and departed for the studio with a fresh arrow in 
her heart. Not only had she deceived herself in regard to 
his feelings, but she had kept her own secret so poorly that 
even Eliza Bronson suspected its existence. 

Mary’s solitude in her studio was as hard to bear as the 
inflictions Violet had undergone ; and just as she had 
reached a pitch of desperation Gilbert Warner’s evil genius 
prompted him to present himself. He came, after swearing 
over and over to his soul that he would stop away — came 
in a miserable, resentful, injured mood, when he was ready 
to say everything he ought not, and misconstrue every re- 
mark of hers, and found Mary in a humor to return his 
errors in kind. 

A lately-printed lecture of Ruskin’s that lay on the table 
formed a capital subject of difference. No two people ever 
did discuss Mr. Ruskin without quarreling. In less than 
five minutes the demigod produced his usual effect, enabling 
them to display the deliciously obstinate determination of 
widening the rift within the lute,” which is a character- 
istic of humanity — to be blind and deaf to the truth just 
at the moment when such conduct might entail consequences 
fatal to their whole future. Had they quarreled outright, 
there would have been a hope of some good result — but 
they did not. They bickered, and were sarcastic and indif- 
ferent ; and though any looker-on — even a mole — could 
have seen the real state of affairs, and set them right in a 
flash, they went on as recklessly as two perverse, fascinated 
children playing with fire ; but in their case, pain and 
jealousy made it a grave contest, in which neither would 
stop, though conscious of getting severely burned, until 
satisfied of having at least scorched the other. 

When they had exhausted Mr. Ruskin’s capacities for 
creating difficulties, they dragged in Victor Hugo by his 
gray hair, and after that employed the sacred memories of 


276 


SUE SAID good-bt:^ 


Raphael and Michel Angelo as shuttlecocks, and by the 
time they had finished were exasperated enough to utter 
certain personalities very thinly disguised in the garments 
of polite words. , 

Puerile — silly ! jlTo doubt ; but three-quarters of the 
misery we suffer comes about from as slight causes, and 
the pertinacity with which we all at untoward moments 
trifle with our happiness or fling it away — see white black, 
and misunderstand those who love us — is a sight to make 
angfela cease weeping, and decide that a race so vacuous 
must be as incapable of real joy or grief as it is of using its 
boasted reason.} 

We seem fated to disagree to-day,” said Warner. 

‘‘ At least I trust that I have been neither cross nor un- 
civil,” Mary said, with a slight emphasis on the personal 
pronoun. 

“ And that means I have ?” returned he, in an inquiring 
tone. 

‘‘Pray do not dignify my words by assigning them 
occult meanings,” said Mary, conscious that the speech 
sounded worthy of Miss Bronson, and rendered more angry 
by the thought that her stateliness held a touch of 
absurdity. 

“I only adopted the signification which was obvious 
even to my dullness,” Warner replied, waxing a little 
Grandisonian. 

Perhaps now, had they been left alone, one or the other 
might have pronounced words so sharp that penitence 
would have brought about a better understanding, but an 
interruption came at this moment — deferred, one would 
almost be ready to say, by some malicious imp, until it 
could do harm instead of good. 

Some person in Mr. Yaughton’s studio knocked on the 
door — it proved to be the sculptor’s head workman, bring- 
ing a note. 

“ Is there an answer ?” Mary asked. 

The messenger was waiting to know. 

“ Will you excuse me, Mr. Warner ?” 

Warner bowed. As Mary tore off the envelope it 
flattered to his feet ; glancing involuntarily down at it, he 
recognized Laurence Aylmer’s writing. He looked back at 
Mary. She was reading eagerly — oh, her color changed ! 
he was sure of that — her very fingers trembled ! She had 


* ‘ SHE SAID Q 0 OD-BY. 


277 


been changing color rapidly and trembling for some 
moments before, but he had not noticed it. 

As she looked up their eyes met ; he thought she 
seemed amazed at his scrutiny, afraid, perhaps, that she 
might have betrayed her pleasure in perusing the page. 

Yes — and my best thanks — tell the man to say,” was 
Mary’s observation to the workman, who bowed and de- 
parted. 

Warner stooped for the envelope, and handed it to her. 

She accepted it with a gesture of thanks, and put the' 
note back therein. At another time she would very likely 
have shown him the missive — a cheerful little billet, in- 
closing an address of some mutual friend, which she had 
asked him for on the previous evening. 

‘‘I am glad to see something pleasant has happened to 
you,” said Warner, determined that she should have no 
doubt as to whether he had perceived her agitated nianner 
while reading the page. “ One never can fail to recognize 
that peculiar writing — pray-don’t think I picked up the en- 
velope for the purpose of looking at it.” 

“I do think you are rude!” cried Mary, indignantly. 

You have no right to suppose me mean enough to harbor 
such a suspicion.” 

I beg your pardon again. Really I am so unfortunate 
in my remarks that I think I had better bid you good-day.” 

Good-day,” echoed Mary. 

1 will leave you with Mr. Aylmer’s letter ” — affecting 
to laugh — that will be agreeable, like its writer.” 

“ Mr. Aylmer is always good-natured,” said Mary. 

Oh, sipreux chevalier P 

“ Good, honest, noble. I thought he was your friend.” 

He is ; and he is all that you say,” replied Warner ; 
then, with another pretended laugh, he added : The 

woman who marries him will be fortunate, however great 
her own deserts, and ” — still laughing — I fancy I know 
who that woman is.” 

Mary had turned towards the pedestal which supported 
her clay. She looked back, and momentarily forgot anger 
in a desire to warn him not to open his lips to anybody 
else, supposing that he referred to her cousin Violet. 

Please don’t say it ; oh, he has never — I mean ” 

Her eagerness resembled embarrassment. He grew 
fairly sick and blind. He had been answered indeed. 


278 


A MORNING RIDE, 


I beg a thousand pardons,” he interrupted, caught his 
breath, and gasped : Don’t fear my speaking !” 

Oh, he must get away, the room reeled ! He snatched 
at his tvatch, stammered something, heard Mary ask thehour. 

Four o’clock,” he said ; “ I — I had forgotten an en- 
gagement on business. Good-morning, Miss Danvers.” 

Good-by,” replied Mary, not by any means appeased, 
and hastily resumed her work. 

He hurried across the room, paused and gazed at her 
for an instant, then went out and closed the door. 

He reached his studio, flung himself into a chair, but 
not a moment’s space for recovery from his agitation was 
given. The servant entered with a letter. He opened it, 
hardly knowing what he was about : took in the meaning 
enough to understand that it contained a proposal to go to 
Greece. An immediate answer was requisite. 

“ She said good-by,” he muttered : ‘‘ it shall be good- 
by ! I have learned the truth at last ; there is nothing to 
keep me here any longer.” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

A MORisrilira ride. 

HE next morning was so bright and beautiful 
that Violet felt sorely irritated by her inability 
to get away from her gloomj’- misanthropic 
fancies. She tried divers employments, from 
music to needlework ; but piano and harp only 
seemed to give out mocking voices under her touch — 
voices cognizant of her folly and full of unpitying re- 
proaches therefor. When she sat down to some complicated 
piece of lace embroidery, which she kept on hand as a kind 
of penance, she could no more count the stitches correctly 
than if she had never studied an addition-table in her life, 
and discovered after a few minutes that she had wrought 
such eccentric variations in her pattern that the gossamer 
web looked like a preposterous Chinese puzzle invented by 
some Celestial laboring under temporarv aberration of 
mind. 




A MOmiNG BIDE. 


279 ' 


She flung aside her needlework, ordered her horse, and 
was as impatient over the time it took to get into her habit 
as if she had been late in starting on some momentous 
journey. 

A narrow, unfrequented street led directly from her 
house to the broad viale which encircles the city. She 
took this route, gained the suspension-bridge that crosses 
the river at the entrance of the Cascine, and galloped away 
down the road beyond the Porta Romana. 

The March day might have strayed up from Sicily, it 
was so warm and bright, only with an exhilarating fresh- 
ness in the air peculiar to the climate of Tuscany. The 
sky seemed a vast turquoise sea, with great shallops of 
white clouds moored here and there in its azure depths ; 
the atmosphere so clear that objects miles distant were dis- 
tinctly visible. The groves of olive trees cast long gray 
shadows over the hill-sides ; the mountains in the back- 
ground were crowned with wide bands of amber light ; 
the whole scene lovely and picturesque beyond descrip- 
tion, only possessing a sense of peace and tranquillity 
in every sight and sound which fretted Violet from its con- 
trast with her mood. 

She reached the gates of the old Certosa ; decided to 
dismount and go in. She liked to stray about the echoing 
corridors and neglected garden, tenanted by the dozen or 
more white-robed monks whom the march of progress has 
left as the sole remnant of the flock that once held posses- 
sion, and this remnant only permitted to remain because 
the famous green and yellow liqueur manufactured within 
the walls gives a practical, commercial reason for the reten- 
tion. , 

Violet waited till her groom rode up, slipped out of her 
saddle, and passed in at the gateway, to receive a cordial 
welcome from the old monk who met her at the door of the 
church ; for she had often visited the place, and always 
left such substantial evidence of her coming that naturally 
the brethren waxed jubilant at sight of her. 

And, wandering about in the garden, she came upon 
Gilbert Warner, his usually cheerful, animated face looking 
as if he had been tempted into a long ramble by fancies 
almost as misanthropic and unfitting the day as those which 
had driven Miss Cameron out of doors. 

It was a relief to see by his countenance, when she 


280 


A MORNING RIDE. 


suddeijy appeared, that he wished her anywhere else. To 
have met a person who showed satisfaction and tried for 
compliments over the unexpected pleasure of this encounter 
she felt would have exasperated her beyond endurance. 

She greeted him with her customary cordiality, a little 
amused to think that she, the spoiled princess, could at any 
time or in any place stumble upon a specimen of male 
humanity who failed to beam with delight at her approach : 

I did not dream of finding any other visitor at this earl / 
hour,” she said ; ‘‘ much less so industrious a person as you. 
Are you going to make a sketch of the garden and the old 
monk in the corner (who pretends to be absorbed in medi- 
tation, but is not), for a picture ?” 

“No,” Warner replied; “I had an errand out here; 
besides, I wanted a long walk — a chance to think something 
Dver.” 

“ Ah, a subject for a new picture, of course !” 

“ Who would have expected you to be so matinal !” he 
said, without noticing her remark. “ The last person I 
should have anticipated the pleasure ” 

“ Don’t finish !” interrupted Violet, laughing. “ It is no 
pleasure to meet Miss Cameron, or anybody else ! I am 
sure you came for the same reason that brought me — 
because you thought you would not see a human creature 
except the monks ; and they are such movable wooden 
images they don’t count.” 

“ I should not have supposed you ever had moods like 
those,” he said. 

“ I see no reason why I should be exempt from the chief 
of human privileges — that of being morose and out of 
sorts,” returned Violet. “ And can you find any good and 
sufficient cause why you should have any more right than I 
to such enjoyment ?” 

“ I don’t think I am morose,” he answered. “ I was 
tired — I have that excuse — I have been hard at work for a 
fortnight.” 

“ And I — oh, you need not laugh ! Pray, what can be 
harder work than having to crowd every moment of one’s 
waking hours with what is called amusement ?” 

“Yes, I can understand that. I only wonder why peo- 
ple do it.” 

“ So do the victims wonder, you may be sure.” 

She was studying his face now. She had not seen him 


A MOBmWG BIDE, 


281 


since the night he dined at her house. He did look tired ; 
not so much physically weary, as if some shadow had come 
between his blithe spirit and the sun. Violet heartily liked 
the young fellow, with his earnestness and his determina- 
tion. It occurred to her that perhaps some of the evils so 
common to his estate — an artist in the outset of his career — 
had overtaken him. The expected installment of his 
income might have failed to arrive in due season. He 
might find himself in a foreign country menaced by that 
most unendurable of petty ills — a lack of money. She 
would not do what she had meant to when they met — speak 
a few pleasant words and turn away ; she would make him 
talk — discover by some means if her suspicion were correct. 

“ Have you ever made a sketch of the garden she 
asked. 

“I began one the last time I was here, but did not 
finish it,” he replied. 

“ I wish you would,” she urged, seeing her way easily 
to be of assistance in case pecuniary difficulties stood in his 
path. “ I have always meant to get somebody to paint me 
a picture with my pet monk, Giuseppe, in the foreground — 
leaning on the picturesque old well, for instance. Then I 

should like a companion sketch — say of Why, what 

are you shaking your head for ?” 

I should, of course, be very much honored by a com- 
mission from Miss Cameron,” he answered, ‘^but I fear it 
must wait.” 

‘‘ Ah, well, if you are too busy now, promise to undertake 
it as soon as you have time.” 

Or when I find myself in Florence again.” 

“ You are not thinking of going away ? I thought you 
intended to remain several years in Italy.” 

‘‘ Yes, I did. I told you I came out here this morning 
to think matters over.” 

“ About going, you mean ?” 

Last night I believed my mind made up,” he said ; 
but men are such silly creatures !” 

‘‘ I am so sorry you think of leaving !” 

‘‘ Oh, I shall come back some time. I have had an offer 
to go to Greece. I have never been, you know.” 

‘‘ Naturally, the opportunity is not one to neglect,” she 
said, satisfied now that his trouble had a different source 
from that which she had supposed, but confident still that 


283 


A MORNING RIDE. 


the trouble existed, and, with her usual desire to lighten 
care or distress, her heart softened more and more towards 
the young man who looked so weary and sad-eyed, so un- 
like the happy, self-reliant youth she had hitherto known. 

“ If you do go, I hope you will not stay long,” she said ; 
but perhaps, after all, you will decide to postpone your 
journey, since you were only thinking about it.” 

“ My decision must be made at once. If I go, I shall 
start to-night.” 

To-night ?” 

Yes. I cannot put off my departure, because I am to 
meet some people at Brindisi for the next steamer, and I 
must first go up to Verona. I have business there.” 

She stood thoughtfully regarding him. 

“ This is very sudden,” she said. When did you re- 
ceive the proposal ?” 

“ Yesterday,” he replied, his mouth working a little, as 
pronouncing the word reminded him of the circumstance 
under which the news had come. But — but — several 
times lately I have been thinking of going away : it would 

be better than to stay here and feel what an idiot ” 

He broke off abruptly, coloring scarlet to the roots of his 
hair. I have not the least idea what I meant to say,” he 
cried ; or rather, why I said it in that silly fashion ! I 
mean I have an idle fit on me, and cannot work ; change 
of scene may cure it.” 

Violet laid her hand upon his arm as frankly as if he 
had been a younger brother. 

“ Come, walk up and down,” she said. Tell me all 
about it, Gilbert ! friends always tell me everything — 
I shall fancy that you are not really my friend unless you 
do.” 

She spoke truly ; even the most reticent people found 
themselves revealing their secrets to Violet Cameron with a 
candor at which they might afterwards wonder, though no 
person ever had reason to regret such frankness. 

To go away had proved so difficult that though on the 
previous evening Warner, as he said, had believed his mind 
made up, he wanted still time to reflect. That speech of 
Mary’s, which had carried such sudden desolation to his 
soul, presented itself in a new aspect as he turned it over 
^and over during the long watches of the night. Was it so 
'certain she had referred to herself — would she so openly 


A MORNING RIDE, 


283 


have spoken ? Or, reading his secret clearly, did her desire 
to save him further self-deception impel her to betray a 
truth in regard to her feelings whose utterance must have 
cost her dearly indeed. He would talk frankly with Miss 
Cameron — if his suspicions were well founded (a little while 
before he had called them certainties), if Mary loved Lau- 
rence Aylmer, she would know it. 

‘^What is at the bottom of this resolution ?” Violet 
asked in her soft, confidence-impelling voice. “You know 
it is not curiosity that impels me to ask, Gilbert. I .am 
sure something troubles you.” 

“ Yes,” he said. 

“Then tell me what it is,” she urged. “Remember 
how often we women discover a way out that escapes you 
men.” 

“ You are very good — only too good !” he said. 

“ Hush ! don’t say that ; it sounds like putting me off — 
a polite way of telling me I am meddlesome and intrusive.” 

“ You know I could not think that.” 

“I shall believe you do unless you are frank ! Come; 
I am a sort of grave elder sister ; this is just the place for 
a confession. Don’t make me afraid you have ceased to 
like me : you used to tell me everything ; at least you said 
you did. Don’t cast me off because you are not a boy any 
longer.” 

“ No, no !” he said, in a rather tremulous voice. “ I— I 
had a mind to tell you the other night at Lady Harcourt’s, 
only it seemed so silly.” 

“Silly to have faith in a friend? oh, that is very 
wicked !” 

“ To trouble you with my nonsense, of course I mean.” 

“ Nothing that troubles a person I like can seem non- 
sense,” Violet answered. “ You know me well enough, I 
hope, to be certain of that.” 

“ Indeed I do 1” he exclaimed, grasping her hand with 
such fervor that it hurt ; his blue eyes fixed upon her in 
warm friendship and admiration, though they were still 
misty from the cloud which overshadowed his soul. 

“ Now let go my hand ; what will the monks think if 
they see you ! My old friend Giuseppe will withdraw the 
light of his countenance, certain that my visit was only an 
excuse to meet a young nian,” said she, speaking playfully, 
just to keep him from an over-strained expression of feel- 


284 


A MOBmm RIDE. 


ing which he might afterwards regret. Her varied experi- 
ence in playing confidante had taught her that if people 
only make their revelations with a certain degree of com- 
posure, they are not half so much disturbed in thinking the 
matter over as they are if excitement has led them into 
a display of emotion, such as a man in his cooler moments 
terms “ making a fool of himself,” and a woman styles 
‘‘ doing theatricals.” 

They walked along the path for a little while in silence. 
A sudden light broke upon Violet — she knew what War- 
ner’s trouble was ! How did it happen that she had been 
so blind as not to think of it before ? Why, he had 
revealed his secret that first day they met in the gallery 
after his return ; revealed it each time he glanced towards 
Mary. And she, Violet, had been so engrossed with watch- 
ing the girl and Aylmer, that she had not even a thought 
for what poor Warner’s face said, though in this rapid 
instant of recollection its expression recurred so vividly 
that she could feel an additional sting of shame at having 
been so full of herself and her miserable weaknesses that 
the truth, patent as it was, had escaped her. This boy had 
given his heart to Mary, and she had her heart too 
completely occupied with other dreams to heed the offering. 
Ah, Just another of those dismally-laughable catastrophes 
which Fate in her hardness likes bringing about ! It was 
right that Mary should love Ajdmer ; she was worthy his 
affection, and, rating him above all other men, Violet felt 
it fitting that he should have the first chance at the best 
and highest of Fortune’s favors. Still it seemed cruel 
of Destiny to make this warm-hearted, affectionate, true- 
souled Warner suffer. 

“ What was it you had a mind to speak about the other 
night ?” she asked. ‘‘ Tell me, Gilbert.” 

It was difficult to resist Violet Cameron when she 
looked and spoke as she did now. Fortunately, in her 
case, Nature had not bestowed, as she so often does, that 
gift of fascination which impels men, even against their 
judgments and wills, to yield to the spell, upon a woman 
who employed her singular influence for evil instead of 
good. 

“ Tell me,” she repeated. 

I believe I meant to ask you something instead,” he 
said. “ Still it seems cowardly. I ought to go direct and 


A MORNma RIDE. 


285 


ask her — but it is so difficult — for her sake, I mean. If-— 
if — oh, yesterday I thought I had been answered — but the 
more I reflect the less sure I feel — and to go away without 
being certain — perhaps, when too late. And I had made a 
mistake — oh ! ” He broke off suddenly, then ex- 
claimed : “ What an idiot I am ! I have just been think- 

ing aloud instead of uttering a single intelligible sentence.” 
think I understand,” Violet said, in a low tone. 

He stopped short in the path and confronted her : he 
was pale to his lips, but very quiet. 

You mean — that I am too late. I was not mistaken — 
I am too late,” he said slowly, dropping the words out one 
by one with painful diotinctness. 

Left to himself half an hour longer, his meditations 
would have resulted in his returning home, seeking Mary, 
and boldly asking her the real significance of that speech 
which seemed to him the more doubtful the longer he pon- 
dered upon it. The matter would have been so easily 
cleared up— the last cloud between the young pair ban- 
ished ; and now Violet thrust herself in between them and 
the truth. 

She must answer, she must tell him. Oh, every species 
of hard duty came upon her — but she must speak ! 

I will not deceive you,” she said ; it could do no 
good. Oh, Gilbert, I must not even tell you how grieved 
I am ” 

He checked her by a quick gesture. 

‘‘Yes, I know,” she said; “it would only sound like 
mockery. My dear Gilbert — my poor boy !” 

“ Too late,” he replied. “ I was sure of it the first time 
1 saw her with him — perfectly sure ; but I tried to deceive 
myself — I was such a weak fool !” 

How his words cut across Violet’s heart — like the echo 
of her own personal reflections ! She too had been certain 
that very day — she too for a little had tried to deceive her- 
self — weak fool that she was ! 

“ I don’t see why that man should have everything in 
the world,” Gilbert exclaimed suddenly. “ Ah well ! per- 
haps lie deserves it all — yes, I believe he does. I won’t be 
contemptible just because he has come across my path — • 
only his shadow has taken away all my sunlight. Ah, ray 
God, how I loved her 1” 


I 


f . 

280 ^ A MORNim RIDE. 

He turned abruptly away and hurried up and down the 
garden-path. 

Violet stood looking sadly after him. His pain, though 
different from hers, found such a response in her heart, 
through her great sympathy for him, that it seemed fairly 
a part of her own burden — a new bitterness forced upon 
her soul. 

It would be useless — nay, wicked — to follow her first 
impulse to tell him that she might be mistaken — that he 
should persevere. Mary’s face as she looked that night 
when they talked in the moonlight rose before her ; Mary’s 
quivering voice rang in her ear ! She had made no mis- 
take^ Better this poor boy should know the truth now — 
every day of hope against hope, of attempted self-decep- 
tion, would only increase his suffering. Ah, why could not 
the girl have given her heart to this young fellow, so good, 
so clever, so suited to her in every way? Then Violet 
grew ashamed when she caught herself thinking this, 
afraid that she thought it because such consummation 
would have left Aylmer free — and free or not, it was all 
the same to Violet ! Mary had nothing to do with her de- 
cision ; an impossible barrier loomed between her and him 
— her age — her age ! 

Presently, Warner came back to her side again. 

‘‘ I told you I had not quite decided on my plans,” he 
said. “My mind is made up now ; I am going to Greece.” 

“ But not at once ” 

“I start for Verona to-night,” he interrupted. “The 
sooner the better ! So this is good-by — I shall not see 
you again.” 

“ Gilbert !” 

“ Yes, I know — don’t try to tell me — I know ! You are 
very kind to care. God bless you — good-by !” 

He hurried from her and disappeared before she could 
speak again. Violet sat down and meditated gloomily 
enough for a time ; then she too went her way, having con- 
trived in her efforts to do right to commit as much mischief 
as the most evil-disposed person living could well have 
managed to crowd into one morning. 



TWO NOTES. 


287 


CHAPTER XXX. 

TWO NOTES. 

S Violet was dismounting from her horse, Ma- 
dame Magnoletti’s carriage entered the court. 

“Have I really caught you?” exclaimed 
Xina, as they exchanged greetings at the foot 
of the staircase. “ I fully expected you would 
be out, but I had made up my mind to wait, even if you 
did not come home until dark. I should be pleased to 
know what you have been doing with yourself. I have not 
seen you since the night before last, and you promised to 
come to me yesterday.” 

“ I could not ” 

“ Now don’t tell fibs for civility’s sake ! You did not 
want to come ! -You were in one of your unsociable 
moods, when you did not wish to see a human creature. I 
know you !” 

“ I am so glad you do ; it saves me a world of trouble,” 
said Violet, teasingly. 

“ I sliould like to shake you !” exclaimed Nina, and 
could say no more, because they were within reach of 
Antonio’s ears, as he stood bowing his respectful welcome 
on the threshold. 

“You must cither come into my dressing-room, else 
excuse me while I take off my habit,” Violet said. 

“I’ll go into your dressing-room. If I don’t keep 
watch you are quite capable of disappearing by some secret 
door,” grumbled Nina. 

“ Miss Bronson is out ” 

“ I hate Miss Bronson !” 

“ My pretty little cousin is at the studio ” 

“ She is not pretty, and I hate her too !” 

“ Else I would leave them to entertain you while I 
change my dress,” pursued Violet. 

“ If you did I’d do them both a mischief !” cried 
Nina. 

They entered the chamber where Clarice was waiting. 
Nina flung herself into a low arm-chair, and sat silent. 
Violet imitated her example, glad to ha^ the relief of even 




288 


TWO NOTES. 


a few moments’ taciturnity on the marchesa’s part ; for, 
fond of her as she was, she wished that caprice had led the 
little woman anywhere else this morning. 

‘‘ I wonder you did not keep Clarice all day !” Nina 
exclaimed, as the door closed behind the discreet waiting- 
maid. 

If you display too much ill-temper I can call her back. 
Pray what ails you, that you should turn so acid ? You 
are like a bottle of small beer that has had the cork left 
out.” 

^ Flat, stale, and unprofitable,’ ” quoted Nina, in Eng- 
lish, and began to laugh. “ It is such an absurd world ; 
everything goes wrong — so does everybody — you among 
the number.” 

Oh, my dear, I never posed as a model for correct 
conduct.” 

“ We have made a blunder, and it is more your fault 
than mine ; so you must help me to remedy it,” cried Nina, 
irrelevantly. 

Sorry I should in any way have added to your faults, 
my child ; they are numerous enough when you are left to 
yourself,” said Violet, mockingly. 

Horrid creature ! What a pity it is unladylike to 
break things as the men do in a passion. If it were not, 
I’d tumble over that great cinque-cento vase just to punish 
you.” 

For what reason ? Tell me my crime before you 
sacrifice my most deliciously ugly ornament. Only look at 
that delightful little baby in swaddling clothes reaching 
with precocious eagerness after that preposterous apple, 
and be softened — towards the vase at least.’^ 

It is improper for an unmarried woman to talk about 
babies,” said Nina. I have been in America, so I know 
that.” 

‘‘Especially when one’s married female friends give 
them no occasion,” returned Violet. 

“ Oh, you malicious wretch ! I suppose I might have 
a baby as well as another, if I saw fit.” 

“ Can’t say, really ! I am a practical woman, and never 
assert a thing as a fact until I have proofs before me.” 

Then they both began to laugh, though Violet felt she 
would rather cry, and was very suspicious that Nina’s 
mood had reached a pitch as unreasonable as her own. 


TWO JSrOTES. 


289 


Don’t laugh!” the visitor exclaimed, ‘‘ I am very 
unhappy. Everybody disappoints me — you first ” 

“ Leave me till the last. Get to something more pure- 
ly personal, and which will offer a better excuse for un- 
happiness. What has that tiresome Carlo been doing now 
to vex you ?” 

Nothing — everything ! My dear, I’m not such a fool 
as to care about his endless flirtations. They mean as little 
as mine do. Carlo loves me as much as he is capable of lov- 
ing anybody — as much as I deserve ! We are both true 
specimens of the half-made-up people of this blessed nine- 
teenth century. Sometimes I indulge vague visions of 
being something better, and making him so — mere visions. 
I’m only fit for the life I lead, and I like it — I shan’t deny 
that. But I am worried just now — I tell you we have 
blundered.” 

“Now, see here, Nina ! I am not in a mood this morn- 
ing to be found fault with ; I should quarrel with my 
guardian-angel if he paid me a visit for that purpose. 
What do you mean by our blundering ? Carlo has been 
losing, I suppose : if it is not your heart, it must be money 
— excuse my coarseness. But I cannot see how I am to 
blame. At least, you know if there is any difficulty in 
which I can aid you, I shall be ready, though I own frankly 
that if he had to suffer for his folly I should not pity him.” 

“No, no ! Things are not so bad as that yet,” returned 
Nina ; “ though heaven only knows when tliey may bo if 
we cannot foil her again. Of course Giulia da Rimini is at 
the bottom of my trouble !” 

“ Why, Carlo cares no more about her than I do for my 
slipper — you can’t think it ! Giulia might as well try to 
tempt him to eat a ragout rechauffe, as bring him back to a 
flirtation grown cold. Now, don’t be a goose, whatever 
you are, when you can be so sensible if you choose.” 

“ She knows that ; so do I. She means to revenge her- 
self on me — on us — she is sure you would be hurt, too, for 
my sake — by tempting him to play. I only found out yes- 
terday what is going on. Gherardi betrayed it, in his 
blundering fashion, without meaning to. And she can do 
more harm than ever with the help of her Greek, whom she 
has forced down people’s throats at the point of the 
bayonet. I cannot understand why Florentine society will 
submit to anything that woman chooses to do. It knows 
13 


290 


TWO NOTES. 


her thoroughly — says of her what she deserves — but she 
goes audaciously on, and rules all the same.” 

“ But about Carlo ?” 

‘‘ For some reason the Greek hates you ; I have discov- 
ered that. I suppose you have snubbed him.” 

‘‘He has never been presented — never shall be !” 

“ And I am sure Giulia blames me for everything : your 
not visiting her, and all.” 

“ I’ll tell her my reasons if you like.” 

“Don’t, in the name of all the saints ! though, bless me, 
why one should invoke them I don’t know, since they are 
always blind and deaf when one needs their aid.” 

“ Come, come, don’t speak disrespectfully of them ! 
They mayn’t be much good, but we might be worse off 
without them ! About Giulia ?” 

“ Oh, yes ! Only fancy ! yesterday, speaking of your 
supper last week, she said to me, with that dreadful smile 
of hers, ‘ I see Miss Cameron has forgotten me this winter. 
I have a better memory for my friends. I don’t forget her, 
any more than I could you, ray darling little Nina.’ A 
threat for both of us. Wait ! I know you don’t care, but 
I do. She can’t attract Carlo by her smiles, but she can by 
cards. Oh, they’ve organized a club ! It meets two nights 
a week at her house — just the worst of the lot — and Carlo 
goes ; Gherardi told me so. And she and the Greek cheat ; 
I’ll stake ray life on it !” 

“That would do no good, unless you could prove it.” 

“Prove it!” broke in Nina. “ How can I, when you 
will not help ?” 

“ Oh, Nina,” said Violet, thoroughly exasperated by 
these incoherent attempts at an explanation which only 
rendered her meaning the more confused, “ if you can’t 
talk intelligibly do let me alone.” 

For the first time in all these years of warm friendship, 
the pair were on the brink of a quarrel — over nothing, too ; 
for that very reason likely to be the more disastrous if it 
came. Without being aware of the fact, both were in a 
state of such intense nervous excitement, that for the 
moment a duel of words, which must leave wounds difficult 
to heal, would have been more in unison with their feelings 
than any rational attempt to come to a clear comprehension 
of matters. 

Nina rose, gathered her wTaps about her, and said : “ I 


TWO NOTES. 


291 


will leave you alone ; I’ll never trouble you again either 
about any affairs of mine — you may be sure of that.” 

Violet was in a mood so perverse that she might abso- 
lutely have let her go in silence had she not caught sight in 
a mirror of the face Nina kept so resolutely turned away. 
The tears were streaming down the little woman’s cheeks : 
her pretty mouth quivering like a hurt child’s in her efforts 
to repress an audible sob. 

Violet, started up, hurried forward a few steps, and 
flung her arms round her friend’s waist. 

‘‘ I do think we are both out of our senses !” cried she ; 
and I am more to blame than you. I don’t know what 
ails me ; I believe I am possessed, like those unfortunates 
in old days — not by one demon only, but at least a score. 
Sit down, you poor darling, and try to tell me. I’ll do 
whatever you want ; I promise that in advance.” 

“It was all my fault,” returned Nina, soothed and 
penitent ; “I dare say I did not in the least explain.” 

“ Well, my dear, I must admit that your explanation 
failed in lucidity ; still that was no excuse for my being so 
impatient. Come, commence all over again ; I’ll be patient 
enough this time, to atone for my rudeness.” 

“ Oh, rude you could not be !” 

“And nothing could really interfere with our love for 
each other,” said Violet, kissing her, and drawing her 
towards a sofa. “Now sit down, and I’ll sit by you.” 

“ How absurd that we should have come near a quarrel !” 
cried Nina, beginning, with her usual inconsequence, to 
laugh, while the tears still stood on her cheeks. “ The first 
time such a thing ever happened to us.” 

“A warning ! In friendship as in other things, ce rCest 
que le 'premier pas qui coute.'*^ 

“Bah ! I don’t believe in proverbs ; they wouldn’t be 
repeated so often if they had any truth in them,” said Nina, 
her good-humor so fully restored that her spirits began to 
rise, and she could snatch hastily at more cheerful views of 
life. 

“ Don’t stop to be either witty or misanthropic, else we 
may quarrel yet,” returned Violet. “ Let us get at an un- 
derstanding !” 

“ I don’t in the least know where I was — you put me 
out completely !” said Nina, with another baby moue^ and a 
sudden disposition to have her cry out after all. 


292 


TWO NOTES. 


Violet felt that a fit of weeping on her friend’s part 
would completely upset her resolve to be penitent and pa- 
tient, so she hastened to fling Giulia da Rimini’s name into 
the conversation, in the hope that it would move Nina to 
anger sufficient to check her lachrymose tendencies — a 
weakness which it must be said the little woman seldom 
exhibited for the benefit of any looker-on, even Violet — 
never for Carlo’s ; she was much too wise, even in her 
dreariest moments, to render any matrimonial crisis more 
desperate by such show of feminine feebleness. 

“I don’t remember what I was saying,” continued 
Nina. 

‘‘You were freely slandering the Rimini and her Athe- 
nian ; accusing them of being Greeks in the modern slang 
acceptation of the term,” replied Violet. 

“ And it is true !” exclaimed Nina. “ I have not the 
slightest reason to think so, but I know it is true.” 

“ And I am quite ready to put implicit faith in your in- 
tuitions,” said Violet, “but what can Ido?” 

“ Ah, just the thing you refuse — to let me go to her 
house the nights their odious club meet !” 

“ Now, Nina, with the best intentions on my part, that 
assertion is a little too strong for endurance ! I never tried 
to hinder you or anybody else from visiting the woman. 
I don’t go to see her, and I don’t invite her, but ” 

“ Ah, that’s just it,” interrupted Nina, triumphantly ; 
“ now we come to the gist of the matter at once ! I tell 
you they cheat ; I could watch if I were there — but she 
won’t have me without you, and you won’t go !” 

“ I can scarcely suppose that her insolence would carry 
her to that pitch — why. Carlo would never stand it.” 

“ Oh, Mary, Catherine, Barbara, and all the rest !” 
groaned Nina, giving herself a petulant shake. “ You 
don’t half fathom Giulia yet, clever as you are ! My dear, 
she did it so neatly — it was like a bit out of a play — and 
made Carlo side with her and be so stupid that he didn’t 
even see her drift ! Though I need not blame him, poor 
fellow, since he is only a man, when you, the brightest 
woman I ever knew, are just as blind !” 

“More digressions!” said Violet, struggling hard to = 
retain possession of her recently-recovered patience. But 
Nina’s sudden gesture, as if imploring those lately- 
appealed-to saints to aid in bearing her friend’s unparab 


TWO NOTES, 


293 


leled obtuseness, restored Violet’s determination, though 
the gesture might have failed in its effect had it not been 
accompanied by that previous threatening tremulousness 
about the marchesa’s pretty mouth. ‘‘Now, how did Giulia 
hinder you from seeing what goes on ?” 

“Easily enough ! She said, ‘So sorry no women are 
admitted ; that was the bargain those dreadful men insisted 
on ! I cannot make an exception in your favor, because 
that would be insulting — would look as if I supposed you 
Avanted to watch your husband !’ Then Carlo burst out 
laughing, and ran off — (we had all met by accident at Lady 
Harcourt’s).” 

“ Well 

“ Then Giulia said : ‘ If our fascinating Miss Cameron 
had not given me the cold shoulder I could have broken 
my word and introduced her — she might have brought you 
without leave as her chaperon !’ And she looked me full 
in the eyes with that awful smile. She knew she had set- 
tled me — she was certain that you would not set foot 
within her doors.” 

“Was she!” cried Violet. “My dear, even in the 
interests of vour Carlo I can’t turn my salons into gam- 
bling-rooms.’’ 

“ No ; but if you would only go to see her.” 

“ She would rather I invited her to ray house. Let me 
think — hadn’t I promised you and Lady Harcourt and 
Sabakine that you might come here to-night after the 
opera ?” 

“ Certainly, and we mean to keep you to your word.” 

“ Good ! And you think the duchess would like to 
come ?” 

“ My dear, she knows as well as we, ce rHest que le pre- 
mier pas qui coUte in all things ! She is afraid of you. If 
you set the example of cutting her, somebody may follow 
suit — then she is lost.” 

“ Heaven forbid that I should aid Fate and the duchess’s 
instincts in the work they are sure to bring about,” said 
Violet. She sat down at her writing-table and indited a 
note, which Nina read over her shoulder. “ Beautiful ! 
Read it aloud — let us be sure it is perfect,” cried the mar- 
chesa. 

“ She has the audacity to doubt,” said Violet, laughing. 


294 


TWO NOTES. 


Only listen — you have no idea how well it sounds,” 
returned Nina, and began reading the page aloud : 

“ ‘ It seems an age since I have had the pleasure of re- 
ceiving Madame da Rimini ; yet last winter she was good 
enough to accord me that favor now and then, and I weakly 
thought the force of habit might bring her occasionally this 
season also. 

‘ Better to know one’s fate, however disappointing. 
Half-a-dozen friends have promised to come to me to-night 
after the opera — will the duchess be so hard-hearted as to 
make me admit that even in the case of a carefully-arranged 
impromptu gathering I am unable to afford them the hap- 
piness of meeting her ?’ ” 

I should as soon have expected to be guillotined as 
live to write a billet like that to Giulia da Rimini !” Violet 
exclaimed, involuntarily trying to seize the epistle. 

“Never repent a good action,” rejoined Nina, folding 
the sheet and putting it in an envelope. “Now the address, 
and the thing is done. Ce rCest que — I spare you the 
rest.” 

“ Besides, I never did invite her, except to large parties.” 

“ She will be all the more flattered by your appearing to 
think she used to come when you were en petit comite^'‘ said 
Nina, holding fast to one corner of the letter while Violet 
wrote the superscription, snatching it away as soon as fin- 
ished, and hastily ringing the bell, afraid that if given time 
to reflect. Miss Cameron might even yet refuse to appease 
the angry woman. The note safe in Antonio’s keeping, 
and gone beyond recall, the little lady fully recovered her 
spirits. “ You are a darling !” she cried. “ We shall have 
an answer presently. The creature is sure to be at home 
at this hour.” 

“ She will know it is your doing.” 

“ If she does, she won’t allow herself to believe it — 
human vanity will prevent that. She will decide that you 
found you had made a mistake — discovered she was not a 
person to treat cavalierly.” 

“ At all events, it is done. Don’t say another word 
about her. Let me forget for a little that she exists,” said 
Violet, feeling that she had been weak to allow even Nina’s 
troubles to force her into an action so contrary to her sense 
of dignity and right. 

For half an hour the marchesa talked incessantly in her 


TWO NOTES. 


295 


brightest strain, and Violet made a decent pretense of 
listening, laughing, and replying, though all the while re- 
flecting in a misanthropic fashion that friendship, like 
everything else in this hard old world, was a plant which 
produced more thorns than roses. 

At length Antonio’s modest tap sounded on the door, 
and in her eagerness Nina forgot she was not in her own 
house, and cried out : 

“ Come in — do !” Then, “ Oh, Violet, I beg your 
pardon !” 

“No need,” replied Miss Cameron ; “it is your errand 
— quite right you should conduct matters.” 

The Swiss entered, bringing the expected missive on a 
salver, which he presented to his mistress. 

“ Give it to Madame la Marquise,” said Violet, unable 
io bring herself to touch the perfumed billet. 

Antonio obeyed and retired, wondering a little at the 
oddities of the female sex. Why should his lady wish an 
epistle bearing her address handed over to another ? 

“ Shall I read it ?” Nina asked. 

“ I have a suspicion that if you do not it will remain 
unread,” Violet replied, laughing, but quite in earnest. 

“Ugh, that odious perfume !” shivered Nina, breaking 
the seal. She unfolded the sheet, and began, “ ‘ My beauti- 
ful queen of flowers’” — stopped, glanced down the page, 
and cried out, “ Heavens, I believe she has the best of it !” 

“ Nina !” exclaimed Violet, in anger and dismay ; 
“ read it — read !” 

“Just listen ! ‘Beautiful ’” 

“ Skip that,” interrupted Violet. 

“Oh yes — ‘flowers!’ Hear this : ‘So happy to learn 
that invitations to the Palazzo Amaldi are, like other blos- 
soms of paradise, perennial. I knew its mistress was in as 
perfect bloom as ever, but I thought the charming informal 
reunions had failed to put out a second crop. I shall be 
delighted to renew our pleasant evenings. Unfortunately, 
I had invited to dinner a friend of my dear husband’s, to 
whom the duke has begged me to show every attention ; 
so I must trespass on your good-nature so far as to bring 
him, lest in my desire to accede to your kind wishes I 
should be guilty of a rudeness to Signor Dimetri.’ ” 

“No —I’ll not endure that,” cried Violet; “not even 
for you, Nina — I will not ! That man shall never cross 


296 


TWO NOTES. 


my threshold. I have avoided having him presented, I 
will not receive him !” 

“He was there — he dictated it. I am sure he did. She 
never would have had the wit,” groaned Nina, underrating, 
as she had always done, the duchess’s abilities. 

“Then his wit fails,” said Violet. “I shall write and 
tell her it is one of my nights for not receiving strangers.” 

“ Oh, my dear !” 

“Not a word — it is useless. Come, don’t be afraid of 
the odious creature. We Avill defeat her yet.” 

“ Oh ! but this will make her furious ! Don’t write yeU 
Let me think !” cried Nina, beginning to pace the room, as 
Violet seated herself determinedly at her desk. 

“ Think ; but the fact remains ! Giulia da Rimini 
shall not force that adventurer on me !” said Violet, firmly. 

Nina made no answer. Her course had brought her 
near a window, which commanded the jcourt ; she saw Lau- 
rence Aylmer entering. 

“I have it !” she exclaimed. “Leave it to me ; she 
shall not bring the man ; I can hinder her — only promise 
not to write !” 

“ I can’t trust to any chance, Nina. There must be no 
loophole left — no doubt.” 

“You shall have a letter from her in less than an hour, 
saying that she has decided it was better to send an apology 
to Signor Dimetri. Good-bye — I can’t wait — only trust 
me. I will arrange this matter to your complete satisfac- 
tion — you’ll wait ?” 

“ Of course ; be very careful !” 

“ A whole flock of doves and an entire family of ser- 
pents combined,” returned Nina, and ran gayly out of the 
room. 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 


297 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

AN UNPLEASANT MISSION. 

HEN the marchesa reached the staircase, as she 
had anticipated, she saw Laurence Aylmer com- 
ing up. 

‘‘His unpardonable masculine recklessness 
shall be made of a little use,” thought Nina. 

“ I would not have believed he could be goose enough to 
risk offending Violet by dangling about that painted 
sepulcher, but since he has done it, and fascinated Giulia 
by his dreamy eyes and his poetical talk. I’ll employ her 
weakness to aid in the plot against herself ! Oh, will she 
never get to the end of her invention — never leave me any 
peace ! Only let me save Carlo from her talons this time, 
and I believe I shall have done with her — it is only the play 
that attracts him. If I can make her admit me those 
nights, at least my presence will be a little restraint, even if 
I don’t succeed in convincing him of her real motives.” 

Aylmer interrupted her reflections by calling merrily : ^ 

“ It is quite natural that angelic visitants should appear 
to one from above !” 

“ Equally so that demons should appear from below,” 
retorted she. 

He hurried on to meet her, and they shook hands cor- 
dially. 

“ I had been wishing to see you,” said he. 

“A pity that doing so did not rank among forbidden 
things, then you would not have restrained the wish so 
carefully, and I might have the pleasure of receiving an 
occasional visit ; as it is, I never set eyes on you unless I 
deliberately hunt you up in other people’s houses.” 

“ I have been twice at your house without flnding you. 

I believe you are never at home !’’ 

“ Didn’t I say I had to go abroad in search of you ?” 

“Very likely, when you run away from a place just as 
I enter !” 

“You can’t enter here,” she replied, with her most in- 
genuous smile. “Let me spare you a useless mountain 
climb ; Miss Cameron cannot and will not receive you.” 

13 * 




298 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION 


“ The porter said she was at home,” rejoined he, his 
keen disappointment at her information so plainly visible 
in his face that Nina felt inclined to forgive him the sin of 
yielding a little to the duchess’s spells. 

“ After all,” she thought, as Sabakine says, the poor 
fellow really cannot imitate Joseph beyond certain limits.” 

You merely want to tease me,” he continued. ‘‘The 
porter would not make the mistake ” 

“ He could not help making mistakes, you mean, since 
he is a man,” she interrupted. “Miss Cameron is ill — 
absent — dead ! Don’t be too wretched, however ; she will 
return to life this evening, after the opera, and you are in- 
vited to join a few worthless people like yourself in her 
abode of all delights. Does that content you ?” 

“ Perfectly, if ” 

“ I have warrant for saying so ? I ought to punish 
your impertinent doubts by not allowing you to come.” 

“Since I did not dream of expressing any. I only 
meant ” 

“ Something you ought not to mean, no doubt. But be 
easy in your mind ; I am to bring you. Don’t fail to ap- 
pear in my box before the end of the fourth act — nobody 
ever stops for the fifth — why did Groselli write it ?” 

“ From that unfortunate masculine proneness to blun- 
ders upon which you are always so severe.” 

“Very likely. But my wonder causes me to forget 
business. You have something to do.” 

“ It must be something pleasant, since the news comes 
from you.” 

“ More than pleasant. I am surprised you do not divine 
at once.” 

“ When you are so well acquainted with my hopeless 
stupidity ? It would be useless for me to waste your time 
in guesses. Pray tell me what it is.” 

“ You are ffoing with me to visit the Duchess da 
Rimini.” 

“ Oh !” he exclaimed, the little monosyllable expressing 
such a depth of weariness and annoyance that Nina rushed 
at the conviction that her fears for him had been unneces- 
sary : he never would become Giulia’s willing or passive 
victim. 

“ You are quite confounded by the thought of so much 
happiness,” said she, with a laugh of genuine enjo fment ; 


mPLEASAN’T MISSION, 


299 


‘‘ but try and merit the boon, for it is to be yours. Now, 
listen to me. You are to put on all your fascinations ; 
have eyes solely for her. If any other men are there, I will 
attend to them.” 

‘‘ And the aim of this ” 

‘‘Wait ! You will ask the duchess if you are to have 
the bliss of meeting her to-night at Miss Cameron’s.” 

“ A sure means of putting her in a frightful rage, 
because she will be obliged to answer no.” 

“ Which will delight her, because she can answer yes !” 

“ Why, I thought — I fancied ” 

“No matter what ; your part is to obey, not question. 
Now pay strict attention, and Uy to learn your lesson cor- 
rectly. You will entrap her into admitting that she means 
to bring her Greek with her ” 

“ I really cannot be silent ! Miss Cameron will not 
receive the fellow, of that I am certain.” 

“ Oh, second Solon, Daniel, or whatever ! Now will 
you gratify me and — Violet ?” 

“ Of course !” he exclaimed, with the prompt acquies- 
cence which she had been confident her unwarranted drag- 
ging Miss Cameron into her plot would occasion. “ I will 
do anything you require.” 

“Then you will open your fullest batteries on the 
duchess ; you will be tender and exigeant, impatient and 
romantic — rise to the heights of melodrama, if necessary — 
but you will declare your determination not to appear at 
the Palazzo Amaldi if Dimetri accompanies her adored, be- 
witching self.” 

“ As if such behavior would have any effect.” 

“ You will make her promise not to bring him,” pur- 
sued Nina, regardless of his expostulation. “ That is the 
mission confided to you — to persuade the duchess volun- 
tarily to withdraw her proposal of presenting him, and so 
avoid the necessity of a refusal on Miss Cameron’s part.” 

“ But marchesa, rnarchesa !” 

“One would think you were summoning ‘spirits from 
the vasty deep !’ ” 

“ I should need their aid to succeed in ” 

“ Don’t trouble yourself to finish ! You and I both 
know that you can manage the affah without the slightest 
assistance or difficulty.” 


800 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION 


Indeed, you sadly overrate iny abilities, and I have no 
influence which could induce the lady ” 

‘‘Oh, don’t waste precious time in fibs so utterly 
useless ! Tell me at once if you mean to do what I — what 
we wish I” 

It was difficult to refuse her request, yet he foresaw that 
to grant it would make another bond between himself and 
the duchess. He must pay the penalty of a demand which 
only intimate friendship could warrant, by conduct in 
accordance with the rules governing that relation. The 
lady would be able more freely than ever to unfold her 
woes and insist upon sympathy. 

“ I can only do my best ; you must not blame me if I 
fail,” he said, in a rather annoyed tone. 

“ Don’t put me out of temper by such affected 
modesty.” 

“ And the reasons seem ” 

“ I believe a man would stop to argue about reasons 
before trying to save our lives, if we were all shut up in a 
burning house !” cried Nina sharply, his hesitation rousing 
a feverish impatience in her mind. 

Aylmer glanced at her, surprised by the tone of her 
voice ; the signs of real trouble which he read in her face 
checked any further efforts to avoid the unpleasant task set 
him. 

“I will do whatever you wish,” he said. “I only hope 
the duchess will ” 

“ Consent to anything you ask. Now take me down 
stairs, and talk of something else during our drive. Of 
course Giulia is a delightful subject for conversation, but 
mine is a frivolous mind, and it fatigues me to contemplate 
her virtues long at a time.” 

She talked gayly upon any trivial matter that suggested 
itself, and Aylmer seconded her to the best of his ability, 
though his thoughts were sorely disturbed by the duty 
which awaited him. He wished that at least he might tell 
Nina exactly how his apparent intimacy with Madame 
da Rimini had come about, but that of course was impos- 
sible ; not only should he appear a conceited fop, but it 
would be positively dishonorable to confess that the lady had 
elected him the confidant of her troubles, much against his 
own inclinations, which rebelled more and more as her ex- 
actions increased — and they did increase so rapidly. Why, 


AN mrPLEASANT MISSION 


301 


only the day before he had been forced to go to her house, 
in answer to an appealing summons, and she had detained 
him two mortal hours, and prevented any possibility of his 
visiting Violet. 

Could he have known the displeasure and vague doubts 
roused in Miss Cameron’s mind by seeing him enter the 
duchess’s doors, his annoyance would have been even greater 
than it was now. 

Madame da Rimini received Nina with her customary 
warmth and exaggerated expressions of delight. 

‘‘My dearest, darling child ! How good of you to 
come ; I was thinking of you a little while ago — longing to 
see you.” 

“It was a mutual longing, you perceive,” returned the 
Russian, allowing herself to be embraced with a composure 
and sweetness as perfect as if the very touch of her enemy’s 
hand did not give her a thrill of disgust. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Aylmer,” continued the duchess, 
turning towards him with that melancholy smile and air of 
repressed sorrow which she often displayed for his benefit. 

“ I overtook this graceless wretch at the corner of the 
street ; no doubt on his way here,” said Nina. “ I made 
him get into the carriage just to have an opportunity of 
uttering desperate reproaches — he has not been near me in 
an age.” 

Aylmer found it difficult to hide the irritation caused by 
Nina’s superfluous fib. 

“ As I had done myself the honor of calling yesterday,” 
he said, “ I should owe an apology, did not the responsi- 
bility of this morning’s apiDearance rest solely with Madame 
Magnoletti.” 

“ One’s friends deserve thanks for frequent visits,” the 
duchess answered. 

“ But you cannot flatter his vanity as you did mine, by 
declaring that you had been thinking of him,” said Nina. 

“ Oh yes, I may,” Giulia replied. “ I made Mr. Ayl- 
mer’s acquaintance through you, so it is natural I should 
sometimes think of him when I do of you ; and you know, 
I am sure, how often that is.” 

“ Then I owe to you a double debt of gratitude,” said 
Aylmer ; “ even to give me a thought would be more than 
amiable, but tb connect me in your mind with a friend 


802 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION 


whom you value so much as the marchesa is ttie height of 
kindness.” 

“I cannot help being enthusiastic over the people I 
like — it is part of my impulsive nature,” sighed the 
duchess. 

She fondled Nina’s hand again, and gave Aylmer a 
tender glance, and Nina pressed the taper fingers whicli 
held hers, and thought : 

‘‘ Impulsive ! Oh, you boa-constrictor ! I must repeat 
that to Sabakine — how he will enjoy it.” 

And Giulia was thinking : 

‘‘ I have frightened you out of your little insolent ways, 
you small cat — forced your icicle of a Miss Cameron into 
civility too for your sake — oh, Fve not done with you yet 
— this is only the beginning.” 

And Aylmer reflected in this fashion : 

“ I wonder which of us three ought to receive the palm 
for lying? But my masculine efforts look very poor beside 
theirs — how easily they do it.” 

A couple of gentlemen were announced, and after a few 
moments of general conversation, Nina took possession of 
the pair, and left Aylmer to entertain the hostess, saying 
presently : 

‘‘ Giulia, I am going to break my heart by making sure 
that your orchids are finer than mine — Signor Landini vows 
they are. Please come with us, Signor Generale, and be 
umpire,” she added, addressing the elderly military man, 
whose black and gold uniform gave him the appearance of 
a gigantic wasp, though he looked too mild and amiable to 
sting under any provocation whatever. 

The conservatory opened out of the drawing-room, and 
was a very fine one ; the marchesa prolonged her examina- 
tion of the plants to give Aylmer full opportunity to enact 
his little comedy, keeping her cavaliers so well amused by 
her sprightly sallies that they had no leisure to be remorse- 
ful over their lengthened neglect of the lady they had come 
to visit. 

The duchess afforded Aylmer an opening for what ho 
wanted to say — or rather, what he did not want to, and was 
half inclined to neglect, in spite of the appealing glance the 
marchesa had cast at him as she passed, and his desire to dc 
anything that Violet asked. 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION 


803 


‘‘ Shall I see you at Miss Cameron’s to-night ?” Giulia 
inquired. 

“ Madame Magnoletti was good enough to say she ex- 
pected me to escort her there,” he answered. 

“ Then we shall meet. I did not mean to go out to- 
night — I have taken a violent cold, but la helle Violette 
wrote me such a pressing note that I could not refuse.” 

How it vexed Aylmer to hear her speak of his idol in 
that familiar fashion — perfectly unwarranted, he knew. At 
the same time he was wondering how best ho could plunge 
into the task confided to him ; but the duchess continued : 

Besides, I have promised to present Signor Dimetri to 
her. This will be a favorable opportunity, since I need an 
escort as much as Nina.” 

Ah, what an unfortunate wretch I am not to be able 
to offer my services !” he exclaimed, having the grace to 
feel ashamed of the falsehood as he uttered it. 

“ I will own I should have liked it better,” she replied ; 
though it is saying very little after all, since you know 
my sentiments towards that person.” 

Then — excuse me — but I wonder at your afflicting 
yourself unnecessarily,” cried he. “ You need not take 
the man unless you choose.” 

The duchess sighed deeply and shook her head. 

‘‘ I am bound in the toils,” she whispered ; ‘‘ I cannot 
offend him. I dare not. Oh, remember what hangs over 
me, and be merciful in your judgments !” 

She thought Aylmer’s impatient gesture expressive of 
anger and distress at the painfulness of her position : it 
was only a means of relieving his annoyance at the decep- 
tion circumstances forced him to practice. 

After all,” said he, I fear I shall not have the pleas- 
ure of seeing you to-night. I shall be best off at home, so 
I will stop there.” 

His abrupt tone and words certainly betrayed pique . 
the idea gratified his listener. 

“ What has caused this sudden resolution ?” she asked 
with a smile. 

“ I think you must know. After what you have told 
me, do you suppose if — if I have any friendly feeling for 
you, I can bear to see that man in your society ?” 

Ah, my friend — my good, generous friend,” she 
sighed. 


804 


AN UNPLEASANT MISSION 


I have never asked a favor of you,” be hurried on ; 
‘‘you might grant me one so slight. Tell him it is impos- 
sible to keep your promise to-night ; that you had for- 
gotten it is Thursday, and Miss Cameron only receives 
intimate friends — oh, any excuse, but don’t let him go.” 

“ Have you really the matter so much at heart ?” 
demanded she, with a still softer smile. 

“ I swear I have !” he cried, growing energetic from 
sheer delight at being able to say something literally true, 
“Do promise — do ! Ah, so little a thing as that you might 
accord !” 

“ Perhaps,” she said ; “ at all events I will think 
about it.” 

Her mind was already made up, but she wanted 
to hear him plead — see him grow more earnest and excited. 
In reality, she had not yet informed the Greek of what she 
had written to Miss Cameron, and she knew that she could 
not easily persuade him to go ; but it would be such a 
crowning insolence in her triumph over this hated woman 
to force her to receive the man, that the duchess disliked 
to relinquish the satisfaction. 

“ If there is any doubt I must stay away,” said Aylmer. 
“ I can’t meet him to-night — I really cannot ! I — I think I 
will bid you good-day, duchess !” 

“Why, what will the marchesa think?” 

“ It doesn’t matter — that I am a bear. And so you 
refuse me? Well, well, of course, it was an impertinence 
on my part — pray forgive it. Be sure I will not offend 
again in the same way.” 

Mauvaise she said, but her eyes spoke a lan- 

guage which contradicted her playful words. “ And you 
really care ?” 

“ Can you doubt it ? You do not — you ” 

“ Hush, hush ! here they come !” she murmured rapidly, 
as the voices of the other visitors sounded near the con- 
servatory doors, and she felt furious at their inopportune 
return. 

“ Do I go or not ?” Aylmer asked, relieved by the inter- 
ruption. “ Ah, I thought it would be such a pleasant 
evening, but nothing ever happens that one wishes !” 

“ There shall for once,” the duchess said. “ Come to- 
night — I shall go alone. You will tell me then why it is 
you care so much to have me do so.” 


GONE! 


305 


The trio were in the room, and Aylmer spared the 
necessity of a reply. A slight movement of his head 
assured Nina that her scheme had succeeded. 

The duchess exulted in the depths of her soul. Oh, 
she was beginning to wind in her carefully-arranged threads 
very rapidly now. She had forced Violet Cameron to 
invite her ; she had turned Aylmer’s head till his long- 
preserved pretense of composure had yielded ; she should 
triumph in every way. 

Violet still sat at her desk when Antonio appeared with 
a second letter. She opened it and glanced at the com- 
mencement : 

I have deferred giving my husband’s friend the pleas- 
ure of coming to your house until another night. I had 
forgotten that Thursday evening was always reserved for 
your intimates, but Mr. Aylmer reminded me of the fact 
when he came in to call a short time since.” 

Violet read no further. She flung the note aside, and 
left the room : the odious perfume which the woman always 
employed made the air suffocating. 


CHAPTER XXXIL 
GOKE ! 

lOLET and Miss Bronson went to the opera that 
evening. Violet fully determined to increase 
the number of her already-invited guests from 
among the crowd of male visitors certain to in- 
vade her loge^ and the female acquaintances 
who would be in their boxes, glad of an opportunity to go 
anywhere, at any hour of day or night, on the most 
frivolous pretext for amusement. Giulia da Rimini should 
distinctly perceive she had been mistaken in supposing her- 
self included in the charmed circle of Miss Cameron’s 
‘‘ intimates.” 

“ It seems a petty thing to do ; since I have asked her I 
might as well let the matter alone — but then this wretched 



800 


Qomi 


sort of existence makes one ‘ petty,’ ” thought Violet. ‘‘ I 
declare this shall be my last season in what people stupidly 
call the ‘ world.’ I am sure any place outside it would 
hold more attractions. So Mr. Aylmer had the kindness 
to remind the duchess this was not a night to present a 
stranger. I think Mr. Aylmer took a liberty in knowing 
anything about my private wishes. It is not very long 
since he gave me the impression that he did not visit the 
lady : I wonder if any man can tell the truth ? Sometimes 
I half fear he is not so honest and straightforward as I 
believed him. Fickle he certainly is, else his fancy would 
not have wandered away from Mary as soon as she was out 
of sight — wandered away to an elderly thing like me ! Ah 
well, it went back quickly enough, and the little girl loves 
him. After all, he is better than most men ; at least, too 
noble to trifle with her happiness, and he must know now 
that it depends on him. My poor Gilbert ! it seems such a 
pity — good, generous heart ! lleigho, what a goose I am ! 
One of them had to be disappointed, since Mary could not 
well like both. Only to think of this shy little puss having 
so many chances, when girls who live in society and rush 
wildly about from season to season in search of a partly 
can’t find even one adorer !” 

In the mtantime, the object of her reflections sat alone 
in her room, busy with a new novel, and deeply enough 
engrossed therein to forget reality in the companionship of 
the characters conjured up by the romancer’s skill. 

Somebody knocked at the door. Mary’s faculties were 
so absorbed that though the sound vaguely reached her 
ear, it did not rouse any sense of necessity for answering. 
A second tap followed, sufficiently loud to bring her back 
from dreamland in great haste, and she called : 

“ Come in !” 

But as soon as she had spoken, she recollected that it 
was useless to do so in English, indulged in a little wonder 
how people who did not by nature think in that tongue 
could ever contrive to think at all, and then repeated her 
permission in the soft southern accents she was acquiring 
with the facility of her age. 

But when the door opened, Mary perceived that still 
another language must be brought into exercise for the 
benefit of that special member of the polyglot household 
who appeared — no less a personage than Mademoiselle 


GONE 


807 


Clarice, and naturally she, in her character of Parisian, 
scorned to speak or understand anything save French. 

‘‘ Pardon ! I regret to disturb mademoiselle.” 

“ Not in the least, Clarice. What is it ?” 

‘‘A little packet, which cande just after dinner for 
mademoiselle, and was forgotten by that very careless 
Assunta,” returned Clarice. I was afraid mademoiselle 
might already be preparing for bed — I know she goes very 
early sometimes when she is tired — so I would not permit 
any one else to intrude.” 

‘‘ Thanks ; you are very good,” said Mary, still rather 
absent. 

It is mademoiselle who is good — the true cousin of 
my lady,” responded Clarice, with her stateliest courtesy. 

I lay the packet on the table — see ! only some sketches, I 
think.” 

Some photographs I bought to-day,” replied Mary. 

Clarice again demanded pardon for the interruption, 
and went her way. Mary sat holding the book, but the 
spell was broken. After a little, she rose and took up the 
package. It struck her that it did not resemble her pur- 
chase in size or shape, and she began to examine the ad- 
dress, thinking the shop-people might have committed 
some blunder. As she caught sight of the firm, clear 
writing, she gave a start and a little cry of pleased sur- 
prise. 

The parcel was so carefully sealed and the paper so 
thick, that opening it proved a work of some seconds. 
While Mary’s eager fingers tore at the envelope, her smile 
growing sweeter and her eyes softer, her rapid reflections 
ran in this wise : 

‘‘From Gil — from Mr. Warner. The Vaughtons call 
him Gilbert so often before me that I forget. 1 can’t im- 
agine what he has sent me ! He hasn’t been in the studio 
since we nearly quarreled yesterday. All my fault, I dare 
say. I am so bad-tempered. He went away vexed. Oh ! 
I thought he did not care, but if so, he wouldn’t take the 
trouble to send. Ah, who knows? — perhaps this may be 
to tell the whole. Violet said no girl need feel ashamed of 
a liking for an honest man. I am not ashamed. I am 
proud of being able to appreciate him !” 

As she reached this point in her meditations she suc- 
ceeded in pulling off the wrapper. Two or three notes 


808 


GONE! 


and a withered flower fell upon the table — in her hand she 
held a couple of crayon sketches and a letter. A moment’s 
hesitation, in which a terrible fear shot across her soul as 
abruptly as a storm rushes over a tropical sky, then she 
unfolded the sheet and stared at the opening line : 

Dear Miss Daistyers, 

‘‘The suddenness of my departure ” 

This first clause turned her so dizzy that she sank back 
in her chair ; her eyes fastened on the phrase and refused 
to go further. Presently she heard herself repeating in a 
bewildered tone : 

“ ‘The suddenness of my departure ’ ” 

The sound of her own voice nerved her as if some 
stranger watching had made his presence known, thereby 
reminding her of the necessity for composure. She began 
the page again : 

“ The suddenness of my departure prevents my having 
the honor of making my adieux in person. I leave Flor- 
ence in an hour. When this reaches you, I shall have 
started on my journey. 

“ These little mementoes I return. I could not destroy 
them ; yet, under the changed circumstances of your life, 
they ought either to be destroyed or placed in your own 
hands, unimportant though they may be, save from the 
value I attached to them. That they are of value to me, 
is only a reason the more why I should not guard them 
longer. 

“ They are all here — only three notes and a withered 
rose. 

“I am going away. Long before we meet again, 
you ” 

But here a pen had been dashed heavily across the page, 
blotting out the line. This was what followed ; 

“ However extended the period of my absence may 
prove — however far my wanderings may lead me — I beg 
you to believe (if you care to accept the assurance) that 
sincerest wishes for your happiness will go with me, and 
the belief that such is your portion will always cast a ray 


GONE! 


809 


of sunlight across my life, however colorless and dull from 
the lack of personal joys and interests. 

“ I have finished the two drawings which you were good 
enough to prefer among the sketches I made during oiir 
pleasant voyage, and I beg you to accept them from 

Your friend, 

‘‘Gilbert Warner.” 

Gone ! Mary read the letter twice before she could be- 
lieve that she was reading aright. Gone with no other 
farewell than these brief cold lines ! When her mind took 
in the truth, it brought a swift, overpowering sense of 
shame. The hypothetical case she had proposed to Violet 
became a personal question : Was it not disgraceful for a 
girl to give her heart unasked ? And she liad done this : 
he had never cared for her — never ; she had deceived her- 
self from first to last ! Even the dictates of ordinary 
friendship would have prevented a departure so cruelly 
abrupt — without so much as taking the trouble to traverse 
the corridor which led to her studio, where, during the 
whole of that long day, each time she heard a sound, her 
heart had leaped up with an eager hope that it was his step 
— the moment of reconciliation over their foolish quarrel 
arrived at length — each time the disappointment bringing 
a sharper pang and dread. 

It seemed to Mary this dreadful feeling of humiliation 
must kill her ; she could not live beneath its crushing 
weight. After a while the relief of tears was granted ; 
then followed a long hour of stormy meditation, at the 
close of which her lacerated pride struggled for some means 
of defense against its burden. Could she throw the whole 
blame upon her own vanity and weakness ? A thousand 
incidents connected with the past months came up — each 
recollection a fresh torture, but offering a firmer conviction 
which at least possessed a gleam of comfort for her wounded 
self-respect. 

He had helped her own heart to deceive her : no man 
could have given plainer assurances of interest — nay, affec- 
tion — than he had done. If he had never cared for her, he 
was a t rider — that meanest of God’s creatures, a male co- 
quette — to grieve for whom would be degradation indeed ! 
The very harshness of her thoughts brought a reaction in 
his favor — made her as eager to find excuses for him as she 


810 


GONE! 


had been to seek them in behalf of her own dignity. He 
vain, false, capable of playing at devotion, of trying to win 
a woman’s heart to amuse an idle hour, and flinging the gift 
aside as carelessly as he might a broken ornament when his 
pleasure in the game ended ? 

No — a thousand times, no ! If he were false, neither 
earth nor heaven held aught of truth in all their round. 
He was noble and good, a king among men. She flung the 
assertion at her soul with passionate defiance ; it seemed to 
her almost as if she were taking his part against some 
enemy who had basely slandered him. 

She caught up the letter and read it anew, slowly, weigh- 
ing each sentence, each word. She would be calm ; she 
would exercise her reason ; behave as she might if some 
suffering girl had come to her for counsel. What did that 
letter mean ? It was the farevvell of a man who went away 
because he deemed himself unappreciated, uncared for. 
That was what it meant : she should feel and say it, had 
the epistle been addressed to another ; she would say it 
now. 

She studied the page again and again ; pored over the 
blotted lines with eyes so eager that they seemed to acquire 
a kind of microscopic power, which gradually made out a 
word here and there till at last the entire sentence became 
legible. What did it read ? At first she hardly dared to 
credit the evidence of her own sight, but each new exami- 
nation rendered the phrases and their significance clearer, 
more decisive, waking joy and thankfulness in her soul. 

She whispered the sentence to herself ; she gained cour- 
age to repeat it aloud : 

You will have become so serenely content in your new 
happiness that my heart will not even dare to beat too 
quickly in your presence.” 

What did that mean ? Why, he loved her — he loved 
her — and had believed her heart given to another. The 
joy of this assurance was succeeded by fears as terrible in 
their way as her humiliation had been. He had gone, and 
she could send no warning of his error after him. Years 
might elapse ere they met, and she must sit passive, help- 
less, amid the long night of separation ; her hands bound ; 
her will fettered. | She was a woman, and could not speak ;j 
a woman, and so must let her heart and his moan on in the 
dark, and leave unuttered the single word which would 


GONE! 


311 


end their pain — be the wand-touch of the fairy that should 
break the spell of the cruel magician Fate. 

The thought was insupportable. Who could tell how 
long before destiny would permit him to come again 
within her reach ? He might die and never learn the 
truth. Oh, she would think no more ; she should certainly 
lose her senses under the horror of those possibilities. 
She started up ; she must get away from herself ; she 
could endure solitude no longer. There were to be guests 
at the house that night ; Violet had told her so. She 
would for once break her rule of seclusion, and beg her 
cousin’s permission to join the party. Oh, no matter what 
anybody thought ! The need of human companionship, 
distraction for her mind, was so strong that it completely 
conquered the overstrained ideas of decorum and propriety 
wherewith she hedged in her girlish impulsiveness at ordi- 
nary seasons. 

She ran into her bedroom, carefully bathed her eyes, 
rearranged her hair, stood before the glass, studying to 
give her features an expression of composure, with an 
earnestness which would have been ludicrous, except for 
the motive that influenced her — the necessity of guarding 
her trouble even from Violet’s lovingly watchful regard. 
Presently a knock sounded on the door of her boudoir ; 
she had known that her cousin would come to say good- 
night before going to receive her guests. She hurried back 
into the adjoining chamber, and saw Violet standing on the 
threshold. What comparison would serve for her loveli- 
ness ? Well as Mary knew the face, its beauty struck her 
so forcibly that, even amid her preoccupation, she began to 
search for similitudes. 

Ah, mouse, I felt sure you would be up still ! Naughty 
mouse, do you know it is almost midnight?” called Violet, 
gayly. 

“ And yet here comes the sunrise — that is it!” exclaimed 
Mary, moving forward with wide-open eyes of admiration. 

She is daft, this mouse,” returned Violet ; pushed her 
hnighingly back, and entered. “ What sort of ridiculous 
dream did I rouse you out of that you begin talking in 
Eastern metaphors ?” 

“ I meant you ; I was trying for a compa. ison,” said 
Mary. ‘‘Oh, good gracious! do you know now beautiful 
you are ?” 


312 


GONE! 


Violet gave her an odd glance, went up to a mirror, and 
regarded her own reflection for a few seconds in silence. 

I have tried vainly to give you an idea of the woman’s 
beauty, to make you feel it ; so any attempt to describe her 
as she looked to-night, with her ordinary loveliness height- 
ened tenfold, is worse than useless. 

Violet had suffered agonies during the entire evening 
from that struggle which now seemed so familiar, so old, 
between her troublesome heart and her relentless will, and 
the poor tired heart had cried out bitterly against the 
cruelty of its tyrant. 

Her box had been crowded ; never perhaps in the whole 
course of those ten years had men in every look and word 
rendered her power over them so evident. And among the 
troop of admirers Aylmer came, and Violet said to herself : 
‘‘ I could make the dream of those brief weeks a reality ; 
I could make him love me.” 

‘‘ Make !” oh, that word ! it brought back a realization 
of what would inevitably happen if she stooped to such 
baseness. These graces which were so potent must fade, 
oh, so soon ! and then ? No ; let her at least preserve her 
feminine dignity. And Mary, Mary ! Ah, there stood his 
destiny ; this pure, gentle-eyed maiden, with the promise 
of beauty in her face. An honest woman might have the 
right to sacrifice herself, but she must not allow the man 
she loved to throw away his future ; nay, must prove that 
she was a woman, not a fiend, by preventing her factitious 
charms from casting a single shadow across the happiness 
of this girl who had a whole life before her — a whole life — 
while she, Violet, was at the end of hers, since at the end of 
her youth. 

On reaching home she had hurried to Mary’s room, to 
strengthen her resolve by the sight of that sweet counte- 
nance — the sound of that loving voice — for a score of devils 
seemed trying to rouse her hatred against the child who 
had unwittingly helped to render her humiliation complete. 

Mary stood at the other end of the chamber and watched 
her, wondering why all precious gifts should have been 
lavished upon this one woman ; then in her turn felt hope- 
lessly wicked because she could for an instant grudge aught 
to this radiant creature, whose noble qualities of mind and 
heart exceeded even her beauty. 

She suddenly recollected the open letter. Ah, if she 


GONE! 


813 


had left it where it lay, allowed Violet to see it, to ques- 
tion, discover the truth, how different might have been the 
result of later events ! But it was not to be. 

“ Have your belongings got the thousandth part of 
a fraction out of place, Miss Prim?” Violet asked, as she 
turned away from the mirror, 

“ ni burn them all if they don’t keep in order !” cried 
Mary, burying the note under a mausoleum of heavy books. 

‘‘It is time for me to go,” sighed Violet ; “the people 
must have begun to arrive. I wish they would not be 
foolish enough to accept one’s foolish invitations. I want 
to. stop here. It is a comfort to have a glimpse of such an 
image of peace — Plypatia in early girlhood ; Lady Jane 
Grey at her studies ; whatever grave sweet heroine you 
like best. You see I can manage compliments as well as 
yourself. Any way, you are a darling, and I love you.” 

“ I am nothing of the sort !” exclaimed Mary. “ I’m a 
nasty discontented silly thing — but oh, do love me all the 
same !” 

“ Useless, I suppose, to beg you to go down stairs ?” 

“ I was about to ask you if I might.” 

“ Ask me if you might ! Don’t be an exasperating 
mouse ! Haven’t I exhausted my powers of rhetoric, time 
and again, in trying to persuade you not to stay shut up 
here ? I would not, of course, urge you to go out ; but it 
is nonsense to hide yourself when we have guests. People 
will begin to think I keep you a prisoner from jealousy of 
your pretty face.” 

“ Oh, that is highly probable !” 

“Anything monstrous is always probable in this ridicu- 
lous old town. But come into the salon to-night, just for 
once.” 

“ My dress ” 

“ Won’t answer, my little recluse. Put on that white 
gown you scolded me for sending home the other day. 
Quick ! no need to call Clarice ; I’ll help you. If I leave 
you to reflect, you’ll not follow. I know your tricks and 
ways, you artful pigeon, you !” 

“ But you will be late ” 

“ Suppose I am ? The women won’t notice ray absence, 
and the men will be the more pleased to see me because 
they have been kept waiting.” 

14 


814 


GONE! 


‘‘ Miss Bronson would scold you well for instilling such 
sentiments into my youthful mind,” cried Mary. 

Heavens, yes ! she would declare that my conscience 
had become ossified, my heart petrified, my better feelings 
acidulated, my modesty carbonized, and my soul — oh, that 
she gave up long ago, and could not find a new anathema 
to heap upon it ! But hurry, hurry — we are wasting pre- 
cious time I” 

In a few minutes Mary had exchanged her somber 
black attire for a gossamer robe of some Indian fabric, 
cunningly wrought with wreaths of white flowers ; here 
and there a scarlet poppy, emblem of mourning, inter- 
spersed among the leaves. 

“ I want a ribbon for your hair ; oh, here is one. 
We'll leave it down your back. What a mass of waves ! 
Oh, you pretty creature, just look at yourself. Would you 
recognize Miss Mouse ?” cried Violet. 

All girls who will one day be beautiful have instants 
when a forecast of womanhood’s perfection brightens them 
immaturely. Such a moment had come to Mary ; she was 
positively lovely. Laurence Aylmer would see her. Violet 
remembered that — remembered it with a spasm of pain 
which did not hinder her feeling glad. Yes, glad ! He 
would be more thoroughly convinced than ever, now, 
whither his heart and his happiness really pointed ; no 
further possibility of doubt ; no added hesitations to help 
her own silly heart to plead against the truth. 

Come,” she said, in a feverish haste which Mary was 
too excited to notice ; “ come !” 

‘‘ May I talk ? may I be gay ? You w^on’t think it 
wrong ?” the girl demanded, her cheeks like roses, her eyes 
sparkling wdth an unaccustomed brilliancy. 

Violet stopped short, pushed her back, and stared at 
her. 

Good heavens, the child looks like me !” she fairly 
groaned ; then laughed aloud. “ Envy, my dear. I was 
afraid of your making me seem old.” 

“ Old !” repeated Mary, and echoed her cousin’s laugh 
in a tremulous way, with an expression in her face which 
made Violet think : 

She has been jealous. That was what ailed her. Oh, 
my poor child, don’t be afraid ! I’ll not put my shadow 
between you and the light — between him and the future.” 


GONE! 


815 


Then aloud : 

Don’t you let my dangerous foreigners get possession 
of you. I’d as soon permit some black insect to touch one 
of my white rosebuds. I shall tell Mr. Aylmer to take 
charge of you.” 

And the hand she held quivered. Mary v’^as thinking 
that all the promise of her girlhood could not give her wliat 
Violet had in her prime — the positive certainty of being 
loved. 

“ I wish Warner was here. He should make a sketch of 
you,” continued Violet, her vagrant fancy calling up the 
young man’s countenance as she had that morning seen it — 
worn and weary with pain. 

The opportunity Mary wanted. 

“ Oh, didn’t you know ?” she cried. “ He has gone to 
Greece — set off so suddenly he had no time for farewell 
visits. He sent me two such lovely sketches as a good-by 
present !” 

And Violet thought : 

Sent his broken heart, and she could not even find a 
spare corner to hide the fragments !” 

It is too bad he has gone ; but I suppose he has work 
to do,” continued Mary, 

‘‘Work enough!” said Violet. “Well, come along. 
Les absents ont toujour s tort — he must share the ordinary 
fate.” 

And now they were at the salon-doors, and Eliza Bron- 
son hurried forward, saying : 

“ There is no order in this house — none ! Violet, crowds 
— troops of people are here, and what excuse could I make 
for you ? Why, Mary Danvers, I thought you were in bed ! 
Oh, very well ! You both know what you mean, I sup- 
pose. For my own part, I do not in the least.” 

And she stood aside with a resigned air to let them pass, 
suddenly remembering that in her desire to overwhelm the 
pair she had terribly exaggerated the number of guests ; 
i>'ut, after all, that was the fault, too, of those misguided 
creatures ! 


316 


CHRiaTENED CIROE. 


CHAPTER XXXIIL 

CHRISTENED CIRCE. 

T least a score of guests were gathered in the 
salons when Violet and her cousin entered — 
quite a throng, it seemed to Mary, and so few 
persons known to her that she began to feel a 
little shy and almost wish she had remained in 
her own room, until the recollection of what reason she had 
for the first time to fear solitude brought back her courage. 

Engrossed as the hostess was from the moment of her 
appearance, she did not forget to introduce several agreeable 
people to her charge, and established her under the wing 
of an elderly lady, certain that if confided to Miss Bronson’s 
chaperonage, the spinster in her present mood would, wdth 
the best possible intentions, torment the girl nearly to 
death in a very brief space of time. 

Madame Magnoletti came in, leaning on Laurence Ayl- 
mer’s arm. That gentleman paid his respects to Violet, 
stood for a few instants among the little group which sur- 
rounded her, then hurried away to where Mary sat. Violet 
watched him go, and told herself it was well. The pretty 
child would have her happiness. This seeking her the in- 
stant his duty to his hostess permitted, showed very clearly 
his state of mind. At the same moment the Duchess da 
Rimini was announced, but Violet failed to observe that 
Aylmer hastened towards her cousin like a man in search 
of some haven of refuge as Giulia appeared, resplendent in 
a costume of amber satin and black, which set off her dark 
beauty to the greatest advantage. 

“ My dearest Violet,” she said, as Miss Cameron ad- 
vanced to meet her, “ nobody except you could have per- 
suaded me out to-night ; but I could not refuse your en- 
treaties.” 

And Violet was in her own house — could neither resent 
the familiarity nor refute the possibility of having entreated 
Giulia da Rimini to grace her rooms ! She had to endure 
the enthusiastic greetings, the utterance of her Christian 
name (hearing which for the first time from those lips made 
her feel she w^ould hate the sound of it henceforth), the 



CHBI8TENEB CIBGE. 


817 


pretense of an intimacy which had never existed ; for Giu- 
lia was too astute to lose this opportunity of assuring all 
beliolders that she and the courted heiress were as affection- 
ately frank in their mutual attachment as two sisters could 
have been. 

‘‘ O Mercury, god of craft !” Lady Harcourt whispered 
in Nina Magnoletti’s ear. “Giulia is tremendous ! We 
have never appreciated that woman ; she is more than a 
match for us all.” 

“Don’t insult the sex by giving her the title !” returned 
Nina. “ Some Frenchman said the wife Cain found in the 
land of Nod was a wild animal with a woman’s face. My 
dear, Giulia is her lineal descendant.” 

“ Or the original article, who has escaped the Deluge, 
and has lived down to our days,” said her ladyship. “ But 
we need not be severe upon her ; it is amusing to watch 
her maneuvers, since, as you said the other day, she can- 
not interfere with any of us.” 

Could she not ? Nina’s own boast struck her like an 
evil omen. And there was Carlo now, greeting the creature 
in his indolent, graceful fashion, and Giulia holding him 
fast, while she kept her place beside Miss Cameron, and 
continued those amical demonstrations which caused their 
recipient’s blood to boil. 

There had been signs this season in the social atmos- 
phere which warned the duchess (keen as other savage 
creatures to scent danger) that her position was less secure 
than of old. She could no longer venture, in spite of her 
audacity, to despise the verdict of a person so important as 
Miss Cameron ; and Violet should give her the support she 
needed. She should, even if it were necessary to come to 
some open bargain, tell the American that Carlo and Nina 
should suffer if she did not consent. Still the duchess 
hoped to avoid this extreme measure, which, though it 
were to prove a temporary triumph, would be a burning of 
her vessels that Violet might turn to her disadvantage later, 
for Giulia’s acuteness prevented her committing the blunder 
ordinary humanity makes, of underrating an enemy’s 
abilities. Too wise to push her victory beyond safe limits, 
the signora moved away before Miss Cameron’s powers of 
endurance were entirely exhausted, but that they had been 
tried to the furthest point Nina’s knowledge of her friend 
enabled her to see, well as that lady disguised her emotions, 


818 


CHRISTENED CIRCE. 


‘‘I know what you are thinking,” she whispered, going 
up to Violet and making a pretense of adjusting the orna' 
ments in her hair. Oh, don’t lose patience ; you are 
behaving like an angel.” 

“I confess that if I could have the satisfaction of box- 
ing Carlo’s ears it would be a great relief,” returned Miss 
Cameron, unable to resist laughing, exasperated as she was. 

You will have a little respite,” said Nina ; “he has to 
go to Perugia for a couple of days. I am going with him 
— we start in the morning. His agent is dead, and he must 
attend to matters on the estate.” 

“Perhaps you can find some means of restoring his 
reason when you get him to yourself for awhile,” rejoined 
Violet. 

“ I — I hope so ; I am not sure. Oh, I think I have' 
a little secret,” Nina whispered. “ Don’t ask me any ques- 
tions yet.” 

Violet was clasping one of her bracelets, and did not 
notice the vivid blush which accompanied the words. 

“ Ii you have,” said she, “ I really think you might 
have tried its efficacy instead of forcing me to endure that 
woman’s unparalleled insolence to-night. Oh, Nina, I can- 
not do it again !” 

“ I couldn’t — Pm not certain — I ” 

Violet did look at her now as she uttered these broken 
ejaculations. 

“ What ails you ?” she asked. “ You told me to-day 
you were humbled, and here you look as blooming and 
happy as if neither cards nor Giulia da Rimini even 
existed.” 

“ ril tell you when we come back, if there is anything 
to tell. Oh, Violet, I should be the happiest woman 
alive !” 

Miss Cameron gazed at her in wonder. 

“ Whatever can you mean ?” she began, but Nina inter- 
rupted her. 

“ Hush ! here comes Carlo. Oh, if everything else 
fails, you might turn his head if you would only take the 
trouble,” she said, beginning to laugh, just to hide the 
pleasurable agitation that reference to her new, blissful 
mystery had occasioned. 

“ VVhat a charming proposal !” returned Violet. 

“ I don’t care ; he couldn’t resist if you really tried. 


CHRISTENED CIRCE, 


819 


Ob, I do not exaggerate ; that woman means to have 
revenge. Carlo has told me everything at last — he has lost 
fearfully since they got up that club. You will not desert 
me 

Of course I will not. Why, Nina, there is nothing I 
would not do for your sake ; surely you know it !” 

Of course I do, bless you ! Only — only — don’t be 
hard on Carlo : he is so good — indeed he is.” 

“ I can forgive him a great deal while you say that, 
Nina ; but indeed this growing insanity for gaming must 
be stopped.” 

“ Yes ; we must find some means ! Ah, Giulia has cap- 
tured him again ; she’ll carry him off to the card-table.” 

‘‘But they both know that high play will not be 
tolerated in my house : I have so often openly declared 
that the person who tried it would not be invited a second 
time.” 

“ Oh, it is so easy to arrange that ; each hundred francs 
in reality stands for thousands. Do watch him to-night ! 
It seems to me that if we can only tide over these next few 
weeks we can save him. I have a dread of something 
terrible ; it has haunted me for days. What a fool I am 
to get excited ! Only call him away from her — do ! Oh, 
tease him, coax him, flirt with him — anything, but don’t let 
him suspect I have told you of his losses.” 

Miss Cameron made a little sign with her fan to Carlo ; 
he took advantage of some person’s addressing the duchess 
to escape. 

“ He would as soon think of flirting with his sister,” 
continued Violet. 

“ Well, he would and he wouldn’t. He admires you so 
immensely, that you could turn his head if you chose.” 

“Nina, we should both regret it if we were to employ 
any unworthy means, even for the end we have in view.” 

“ As if any other would answer with men 1” groaned 
the marchesa. “ Oh, if he should lose all that legac}:^, we 
must go and stop — heaven knows where — perhaps in 
Russia ! I looked to that money to get us out of all diffi- 
culties. I did not think be would be mad enough to risk it. 
It was to have been invested weeks ago.” 

“ What are you two plotting ?” asked Carlo, as he 
sauntered up to them. 


S20 


CHBISTENED CIRGE. 


Kina has just been telling me you propose eloping with 
her,” said Violet. ‘‘I think it very shabby of you.” 

“It is rather mfra dig, to run off with one’s own wife,” 
returned he, smiling at that lady. “ But, upon my word, 
the small fairy looks so pretty to-night, I may think myself 
an enviable fellow.” 

Kina’s perfect serenity under the avowal of his losses 
had roused his gratitude, and disposed him to be admiring 
and tender ; and she was so bewitching with the bri ght 
flush still on her cheeks, and the half-startled expression 
still in her eyes, that he inwardly vowed no man ever pos- 
sessed a treasure of equal worth. 

“I cannot ruin my reputation by talking in public to 
my legal tyrant, even if he does soothe my vanity by such 
very complimentary fibs !” cried Kina, and went laughing 
away. 

“ She really is adorable,” said Carlo, looking after her. 

“ If only she belonged to somebody else ! But be good 
enough not to irritate me by praising another woman — 
even her. I am in an exacting mood, and can allow noth- 
ing to interfere with your entire devotion to me,” said 
Violet, playfully. 

“ Ah, you want to make use of me for some purpose ! 
Well, I am always at your service — only you might tell me 
the motive of such sudden amiability.” 

“You rudest of creatures ! Is this my reward for 
showing that your fascinations move me ?” 

“ I am a huge goose, no doubt ; but not a big enough 
one to believe that. Who is the man you want to punish r”’ 

“ Oh, you infidel !” 

“ Tell me, and I’ll help in any way : make love to you, 
if you like.” 

“Thanks, you are too good.” 

“ Well, appear to do so, to any extent — only confess.” 

“I confess nothing; but you are my captive for this 
evening.” 

“The most willing one woman ever found,” said he. 

But this style of badinage with a married man — the 
husband of her friend — this slight show of following 
Kina’s counsels — was too distasteful to Violet ; she could 
not continue it. Kothing but unpleasantness could come 
from any disturbing of the brotherly and sisterly terms on 
which they had always been, by an}^ approach to coquetry 


CHRISTENED CIRCE. 


321 


on her part, even though Carlo perfectly understood that it 
was a pretense. 

“There is riV) reason why I should not tell you my real 
motive,” she said more gravely. “I do not like gaming in 
my house. I know, if you refuse to play, the others will 
refrain too, in spite of the Duchess da Rimini, who is 
never happy without cards in her hand. Nina told me 
only a few days ago you had been very wise this winter, 
so you will not mind leaving baccarat alone this evening to 
gratify me.” 

“Of course I will,” Carlo replied, laughing consciously 
— a little ashamed to recollect what proofs of wisdom he 
had given, but relieved from a momentary fear that Nina 
had betrayed his folly to their friend. “ By the way, it is 
the first time this winter I have met the fascinating duchess 
here.” 

“ Oh, we never did more than exchange civilities at 
rare intervals,” Violet replied carelessly, afraid that he 
might suspect something in regard to her reason for invit- 
ing the woman. “I do not like her, and she returns the 
compliment with interest.” 

“ She adores you, she says.” 

“ It is kind of her even to say it. Adore her and save 
me the trouble if you will, only don’t let her make my 
rooms a gaming salon, please.” 

“Oh, she is better employed,” said Carlo. “I notice 
she rather avoids cards before Aylmer — he has a prejudice 
against women’s gambling.” 

The marchese was sorry as soon as he had uttered the 
heedless speech ; although irritated with Laurence for his 
apparent intimacy with the duchess, he felt most anxious 
to keep Miss Cameron from sharing his suspicions, and up- 
braided his own stupidity for speaking. 

Violet followed the direction of his glance, and saw’ 
Aylmer standing beside Giulia da Rimini. She was talk- 
ing eagerly, and he listening with every appearance of in- 
terest. The words in the duchess’s note flashed across 
Violet’s mind, and the displeasure, the sensation of doubt 
in regard to him which they had caused her, came back 
with redoubled force as she noted his deferential attitude. 

She changed the conversation, and Carlo followed her 
lead, yet he felt certain that she was annoyed by the very 
14 * 


822 


CEEISTENED CIRCE, 


apparent state of matters, and now he reviled Aylraer^s 
stupidity more heavily than he had done his own. 

But gallant as Aylmer’s behavior appeared to lookers- 
on, it proved far from satisfactory to the duchess. She 
had come hither exulting in the hopes which his words and 
conduct had roused, and to her astonishment he showed no 
disposition to follow up the advantage offered by her con- 
cession of the morning. This return to his old obduracy 
roused her to wrath so hot that she comprehended it would 
not be difficult for him to change her love to virulent 
hatred, although, paradoxical as it sounds, the conscious- 
ness bnly deepened the spell he had unwittingly cast over 
her fancy. She saw how difficult he found it to confine his 
attention to the recital of some fresh wrongs she had be- 
gun pouring into his ear ; saw how his eyes involuntarily 
wandered towards Violet Cameron, eloquent with a ten- 
derness which shallow observers might deem the effect of 
her own presence. But the duchess was not to be de- 
ceived, and she set her teeth hard together behind the 
smile which softened her lips, mentally vowing in some 
way to bring matters to a crisis before the evening ended. 

“ What a convenience friendship is !” she exclaimed — a 
little vent for her anger she must have. “Oh, you need 
not try to look inquiringly ; you know what I mean ! La 
belle Cameron may be intimate with Carlo to any extent- 
only another form of showing her affection for Nina !” 

The duchess had never before spoken a slighting word 
against Violet in Aylmer’s hearing. He was furious at her 
suggestion, yet in a mood to be troubled : only this very 
day some vague hint of the rumors so artfully spread by 
Giulia and the Greek had reached his ears. Though he 
would not have insulted Miss Cameron by admitting it to 
his own thoughts, his loathing for this woman by his side 
gave him, when in her society, harsh opinions of her whole 
sex. Could Violet stoop even to the most distant appear- 
ance of a flirtation with a married man ? 

He stopped short in the question — shocked with him- 
self — so angered against the duchess that he could not resist 
saying : 

“I beg your pardon. I know you are jesting ; but they 
are both old friends. One never can tell what harm an idle 
speech like that might do.” 

The man lived who dared to read a lesson to her — Giu* 


CHRISTENED CIRCE. 


823 


lia ! Her fingers positively quivered with eagerness to 
smite him full in the mouth with the fan they held. She 
could not speak for an instant ; he stood silent, unable to 
regret his words. She had tormented him so much of late 
that he wished she might take sufficient offense at his auda- 
city to end their acquaintance on the spol-. 

But the duchess restrained her rage, put up her fan to 
hide any tell-tale revelations in her face, and said : 

‘‘ Thanks for reproving me ! Ah, you are a real friend !” 

Pray do not suppose I could be guilty of the imperti- 
nence,” returned he, forced into offering excuses by the 
way she received his speech. 

“ It was a favor — intentional or not,” she said. It is 
not like me to say such things. I am nervous, irritable to- 
night. Ah, I suffer — try to pity instead of blaming me.” 

Certainly I should not take that liberty,” he exclaimed. 

“ It is a privilege of friendship,” she replied, in her soft- 
est tones, ‘‘and you promised to be my friend. You do not 
regret that promise — you do not mean to recall it ?” 

What could he answer except to give such polite assur- 
ance as his unwilling lips w^ere able to frame ? 

“Oh, I know you did not,” she continued. “You are 
too good and kind to leave me utterly alone in the dark. 
How should I have lived during these past weeks but for 
your sympathy ? My whole heart goes out in gratitude — 
oh, believe that ; tell me you believe it !” 

He felt the situation as absurd as it was unpleasant ; but 
he could not escape — could only try to turn the matter off 
with a jesting compliment. 

“ Gratitude for so little ; oh, duchess, what a huge word 
to apply !” 

“ Do not laugh,” she said, “ do not seek to stifle your 
real feelings or mine under an attempt at persiflage. I can- 
not bear it to-night ; I am too excited, too suffering.” 

Their real feelings ! great heavens, what did she mean ? 
Nothing, of course ; merely an exaggerated Southern figure 
of speech. 

“ This room is oppressive, I can’t breathe,” she added. 
“ Take me out in search of a little air. Let me have a mo- 
ment to recover myself ; talking of these fresh troubles has 
unnerved me.” 

Nothing remained for him but to offer his arm, and lead 
her away. Lady Harcourt and her great ally Sabakine 


824 


m THE SOECEEESS^S TOILS. 


watched them go, as they had been for some momenta 
watching tlieir tUe-d-tete. 

When the pair disappeared, the Russian said : ‘‘ The 
spell works — works bravely. Surely you cannot deny it 
any longer.” 

3Ion cheVy I gave up denying anything when I ceased 
believing anything — ages ago,” her ladyship replied. 

‘‘ It is so great a satisfaction to find myself right,” he 
said, laughing out of the recklessness which was so strong 
an element in his character, that the most solemn or the 
most tragic events of human life struck him from their lu- 
dicrous aspect, even when matters which really affected his 
feelings. ‘‘ I am as proud of having christened her Circe 
as if my choice of the title had bestowed her sorceress’s 
gifts upon her.” 

‘‘ Oh, they might be very slight, and still serve to turn 
the men of this generation into swine. Giulia must work 
harder and stranger transformations than that to prove 
her right to the name,” retorted Lady Harcourt, more bit- 
terly than she often spoke ; or, to be correct, with an 
earnestness which she seldom put into her calmly-cynical 
remarks upon humanity. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

IN THE SOKCERESS’S TOILS. 

HE duchess showed no inclination to cease her 
wanderings ; they passed through several 
salons, and reached the great ball-room, which 
was not thrown open to-night. Here Aylmer 
had to obey the motion of her hand upon his 
arm ; they traversed the corridor, and entered a suite of 
rooms scarcely likely to be used on the occasion of so small 
a party, though lights were burning therein. 

In the second of these chambers the duchess sat down 
upon a sofa, and motioned Aylmer to place himself beside 
her. 

‘^Now make me your explanation,” she said, abruptly. 



IN THE SORCEBESS'S TOILS, 


825 


My explanation ?” he repeated. 

‘‘Yes ; I had no time to ask for it this morning. Admit 
that I was very good-natured to grant your request without 
your giving any real reason for one so extraordinaiy.” 

“Did I give none?” he asked, wondering what possible 
motive he could assign, since of course he could not tell the 
facts. 

“ Those were not reasons,” she replied. “ You declared 
in the most rebellious fashion that you would not come if 
Signor Dimetri did ; so I sacrificed the unfortunate feiiow, 
wdio is dying to present his homage to the fascinating 
heiress. Come, was it jealousy where she was concerned 
which made you so determined I should not bring 
him ?” 

He must say something ; he could not appear an ass ; 
but oh, how he hated the woman at this juncture, and ana- 
thematized his own soft-hearted ness for ever having felt a 
moment’s sympathy with her troubles ! 

“ You are well aware that no man is likely to remember 
any other woman Avhen in your society,” he said. 

“ Am I to believe that ?” she asked, in a low voice, in 
which a sudden tremulousness became perceptible. 

There are positions which absolutely force a man to 
talk nonsense, else get up and run away — a virtuous pro- 
ceeding which, it must be confessed, even the authority of 
patriarchal example does not render easy, so Aylmer now 
could do no less than murmur : 

“ Can you doubt it ?” 

For once, too, his manner, which women found so 
charming, proved a downright misfortune. He really 
could not, with his pale face and mournful eyes, bend 
towards a lady to ask her if she would have a cup of tea, 
without unconsciously looking so that any bystander, not 
hearing his words, would have sworn he must be whisper- 
ing a speech that went at least to the very verge of a 
declaration. 

So now, though in his secret soul wishing the duchess in 
Jericljo, his “ Can you doubt it ?” was accompanied by a 
glance which, while he feared it would express his bore- 
dom, seemed only sad ; and the duchess, believing that the 
time of her triumph had arrived, was not the woman to let 
it pass unemployed from any foolish feminine delicacy or 
shame. 


326 


IN TEE SOBCERESS'^S TOILS. 


‘‘ Yes,” she said, “I do believe it ; at least, you see, I 
am not offended.” 

“ Would to God you were !” thought Aylmer. 

The duchess held out her hand. There was nothing 
possible on his part except to take it — to bow over the 
fingers, too — all the while with a secret shiver of dread, a 
premonition that an ill-natured destiny would lead Violet 
Cameron within sight ; and I fear that he cursed the Italian 
in his heart as his moustache brushed her hand, instead of 
his lips fastening on its whitcmess with the feverish energy 
which would have been (at least, according to the lady’s 
ideas) befitting the occasion. 

But he did not speak, therefore she must, 

“ Aylmer,” she said, “ I thought we were friends.’' 

“ I trust we are,” he replied. 

“You would be more frank if you considered me your 
friend,” she said. “You are reserved — mysterious !” 

“ Mysterious — I ?” 

A sudden perception of the absurd side of the predica- 
ment made him long to laugh again. 

“Yes! You have some weight on your mind — some 
trouble. I have seen it for weeks.” 

Her witch’s eyes had penetrated his secret : she was 
going to speak of Violet. He could not bear that — he 
really could not. His reticence and delicacy went far be- 
yond that of ordinary men, who seem ready to pour out 
their love-stories to the first comer with a frankness as in- 
compatible with deep feeling as it is with manly dignity. 
Except in the case of the professor, to whom he was bound 
by ties which rendered their relations like those of father 
and son rather than of common friendship, Aylmer had 
never bestowed a word of confidence upon the people with 
whom he was most intimate — Nina and Carlo ; and they 
displaying a tact which one could wish less rare, had re- 
frained from any allusion to his secret, whether gravely or 
with the misplaced jests one’s allies are apt to indulge un- 
der such circumstances. 

“You will not speak — you will not trust me?” she 
asked, bending on him the softest 1 aster of her eyes, to 
whose very open revelations the hurry of his thoughts left 
him still utterly blind. 

He could not let her go further ; in his present irritated 


m THE SORCEBESS^S TOILS, 


327 


mood it would have seemed a positive profanation to allow 
her to take that dear name upon her lips. 

‘‘There are things of which a man cannot speak,” he 
said quickly, his voice tremulous with emotion. 

The duchess caught the tremor, but naturally misinter- 
preted its cause. 

He had forgotten wisdom and Miss Cameron’s wealth : 
brain and fancy were so dizzied by her spells that he could 
no longer restrain his feelings; it needed now but a word 
of encouragement from her, and he would pour out the tale 
of his passion and its struggles. 

“ There is nothing he need keep back from a real 
friend,” she answered, “ if that friend be a woman. Have 
I not said ? Even though it be a secret which she knows 
ought not to reach her ears, her sympathy — her — her tender- 
ness will prevent displeasure. Tell me your trouble, 
Aylmer.” 

She positively would not comprehend even so plain a 
refusal as that which he had given. Then he would tell 
her outright that he had a secret, but it was too precious 
to name ; she could only do him one favor — never to allude 
to it again. 

“Silent?” she continued. “Ah, but when a knight 
wears a lady’s favor he must obey her behests ! See — this 
compels obedience.” 

She took a flower from her hair, and, with quivering 
fingers, adjusted it in the button-hole of his coat ; her 
other hand dropped upon his ; her head bent so low that 
to any person standing near it would have seemed actually 
resting on his shoulder. 

On the instant, before Aylmer had even leisure to take 
in the new thought which the woman’s utter abandon 
roused in his mind, there was a sound at the end of the 
room behind a mass of plants, like the flutter of a covey of 
birds suddenly disturbed, and Mary Danvers appeared, 
white with an excitement made up of indignation and 
hon-or. 

“ I couldn’t help seeing you !” she cried, her French 
sounding broken and difficult in her passion. “ I didn’t 
hear what you said — oh, I am sure I didn’t want to watch ! 
1^1 ” 

She 'broke down, gasping for breath, regarding Aylmer 
with eyes of fiery contempt. The duchess drew back the 


328 


IJSr TEE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 


hand that laj on his, lifted her head, and hid her face be^ 
hind her handkerchief in pretended trouble, but there was 
triumph in her heart : at least she had lobbed her hated 
rival ! If he had never told his love to Violet he could 
not explain this scene ; if he had, she would not believe 
his attempts at exculpation. For the moment, in the 
savage joy of tlie thought, she forgot the risk of exposure 
she ran in case this girl and Miss Cameron did not guard 
her secret between them. 

Aylmer sat quite still. He comprehended what mean- 
ing this scene must have, even to those inexperienced 
eyes. He was positively stunned by the swift-rushing con- 
sciousness that every hope was over. The duchess had 
wrecked bis life. 

And Mary had got her breath back, and was exclaiming : 

“It’s — it’s no good for me to make excuses. I didn’t 
stop there to listen. I — I thought every moment you 
would leave the room ; and — and, I didn’t want you to 
know — to know ” 

“ Go away !” the duchess interrupted in a low tone to 
Aylmer. “ Let me speak to this foolish child. Go !” 

He rose mechanically ; but Mary cried out, transfixing 
him with another glance of wrath and horror, which came 
like a fresh warning of his doom : 

“ I understand Italian enough to know what she said I 
You needn’t go, Mr. Aylmer, I am going myself. Oh, I 
wish I had been anywhere else ! and I think — oh, I think 
you ought to be ashamed to look me in the face,” she 
added, unconsciously bursting into English. 

She turned, and was running away. The duchess 
started up, and caught her arm. 

“ Let me alone !” cried Mary, so nearly out of her 
senses now that she did not know what she said or did ; as 
she spoke, struggling wildly to free herself, but the 
duchess’s lithe fingers clasped her wrist like a ring of iron. 

“ Go, Aylmer, go !” she commanded. 

A dramatic scene was more than the wretched man 
could endure. He hurried out of the room, regardless of 
Mary’s frantic appeal : 

“ Make her let me loose, Mr. Aylmer ! Oh, I won’t be 
held like this — I won’t, I say !” 

“ Child, child !” the duchess exclaimed in French, 
assuming a tragic mien of mingled pain and fright. 


m THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 


3^9 


•‘stand still ! Listen ! Do you want to be my ruin? Ob, 
let me explain 

“I don’t want any explanations,” cried Mary. “It’s 
none of my business, I suppose — only — only — ob, let mo 
go !” 

Tbe ducbess beld ber fast, put ber disengaged hand 
before her face and pretended to weep. 

“ Have pity,” she moaned, “ have pity ! I w'as wrong 
to let him move me as he did. I — I — Ab, I wish I might 
trust you, dear child ! you look so good — so kind !” 

“I don’t wish to be trusted,” retorted Mary, bluntly. 
“ I only want to get away.” 

“I have suffered so,” the duchess hurried on. “ Ah, 
you are too young yet to know how women can suffer ! 
Do not be hard on me ! Child, child ! somewhere in your 
own life a recollection of this hour may rise to haunt you 
like a ghost, if you do not show me mercy. Remember, 

‘ Such measure as ye mete shall be meted to you again.’ ” 

To hear this woman dare to quote Scripture at this 
moment sounded a horrible blasphemy in Mary’s ears. It 
destroyed her last shred of self-possession. She cried out 
in horror, making an insane effort to stop both ears at once 
with the fingers that were free. 

“You will not be hard on me — I know you will not,” 
pursued the duchess, in artistically broken tones. “Think 
what my life has been ! Married to a man I loathe — a man 
whose fiendish cruelty ” 

“I’ve nothing to do with your secrets,” broke in Mary. 

“I admit that Mr. Aylmer was wrong,” pursued the 
duchess, regardless alike of the girl’s disclaimers and her 
efforts to escape. “ It was only a moment of madness. 
His heart overpowered his reason.” 

“ Oh, if you doTi't let me go !” 

“ I cannot — oh, my God, girl, I cannot !” the duchess 
moaned, with an accent as full of despair as a shriek could 
have been, though careful to keep her voice scarcely above 
a whisper. “You must hear in order to pity — in order to 
comprehend that I merit sympathy more than blame ! Oh, 
he is wrong to love me, but human hearts are stronger than 
human reason. You will learn that one day !” 

Each word increased Mary’s disgust, forced her to 
harsher judgment ; for indeed, when she rushed out from 
ber post of unwilling observation, her interpretation of the 


330 


M THE SORGEBESS^S TOILS. 


scene was not founded upon such evil grounds as Giuiia 
supposed. It centered almost wholly upon the fact that 
Aylmer was disloyal to Violet. But every syllable whicli 
fell from the woman’s lips opened her listener’s mind more 
and more to the signification which would have been patent 
to an older person at a glance. 

“ 1 should think a married woman would be ashamed to 
talk in that way !” exclaimed Mary, as the duchess paused 
to execute a sob of the most pathetic description. “ At 
least I am ashamed of you. Let me go !” 

‘‘ So young, yet so hard,” siglied the signora. 

A flint cbuldn’t be harder’!” Mary almost shouted, and 
shocked the duchess, not by her assertions as to her hard- 
ness, but her allowing nature to subdue conventionality far 
enough to speak so loud, even when half-crazed by emo- 
tion. No, it couldn’t !” added Mary, with fiercer energy, 
because she felt herself on the verge of tears. 

‘‘ So, so !” returned the duchess, in an altered tone — and 
she looked full in the girl’s face with an undisguised sneer. 

After all, what does the matter amount to? It speaks ill 
for your rearing — for your habits of mind, mademoiselle, 
that you are so ready to think evil !” 

“ Oh, I can endure you better when you talk like that 
than when you sob — I am sure it is more your real self 
speaks !” retorted Mary, anger mastering her desire to 
weep. 

The duchess perceived that even in her distress the girl 
was too resolute to be brow-beaten ; she hastily took refuge 
in a compromise between indignation and terror. 

“ Do you mean to betray me ?” she exclaimed. ‘‘ Do 
you mean to tell your garbled story to the world?” 

“ I never garble anything,” said Mary. ‘‘ What have I 
to do with telling the facts except to my cousin ” 

^^Oh, I am lost !” broke in the duchess. “Violet Cam- 
eron liatesme — she will never rest till everything is known.” 

Mary ceased her struggles. 

“ Violet Cimeron would not take so much trouble on 
your account,” said she. “My cousin will no more betray 
your secrets than I shall !” 

“ You promise — you swear ?” 

“ I’ll promise nothing,” answered Mary, and finding hei 
quiet had caused the duchess’s grasp to relax, she snatched 


IN THE SOEGEEESS'S* TOILS, 


831 


her wrist loose and was starting off, but the woman caught 
her gown, moaning : 

‘‘ Promise, promise !” 

“ If you don’t let me go I’ll scream till I bring all the 
people in — I will !” cried Mary, lifting her voice till Giulia, 
perceiving she meant to carry out her threat, let her hand 
drop to her side. 

Mary fled with the rapidity of a lapwing, the signora 
sending after her one long, low, harrowing groan, which 
might have touched the girl except for the momentary 
throwing off her disguise in which the lady had indulged. 
Mary’s keen wits told her in that instant she had had a 
glimpse of the real woman — the sentiment, the despair, did 
not go below the surface. 

Hurrying through one of the smaller salons, Mary met 
Laurence Aylmer ; he bad stopped there automatically — 
stood dull and stupefied under his misery. The girl uttered 
little cry, half of terror, half of disgust, and would have 
continued her flight, but he moved directly in front of her. 

He hardly knew what he meant to say, since he could 
offer no explanation without putting the blame where it 
belonged, and the fact that the culprit was a woman for- 
bade this ; yet a wild idea crossed his mind of trying by 
some means to soften Mary’s indignation, and prevent her 
telling Miss Cameron what she had seen. 

Miss Danvers,” he said, just one moment !” 

“Let me pass !” cried she. “How dare you stop me ! 
I wonder even your assurance can go so far !” 

“ If you would take time to reflect — if I might at least 
ask you to be silent ” 

“And now you want promises,” Mary broke in. “I 
have none to make you, any more than I had to her.” 

“ Only listen an instant,” he said in a slow, choked 
voice. “ You might grant me so much. Remember, it is 
not long since you promised that we should be friends.” 

But his very attempts to subdue his agitation seemed 
acting to Mary — a copying of the duchess’s 7*ole — an addi- 
tional insult. 

“I’ll not hear a word !” she said., “I should think, if 
you have any decency, you would leave this house, and 
never attempt to set foot in it again. Shame on you — 
shame !” 

Expostulations, entreaties, were useless ; he stepped 


832 


m THE SORCERESS'S TOILS. 


aside in silence. Mary rushed on with a fresh sob. Lau- 
rence Aylmer heard the rustle of female garments near the 
door ; before he looked, he knew who stood there. The 
duchess had ruined his life, and his tongue must remain 
tied, because she was a woman. 

“Mary, Mary!” Miss Cameron called, stopping short 
in astonishment and alarm ; then as the girl darted for- 
ward, saw Giulia da Rimini peer in from the adjoining 
room, and quickly vanish. 

Believing that she understood everything — her vague 
doubts of the past hours made certainties by the unmis- 
takable significance of this scene — Violet turned with swift 
wrath upon Laurence Aylmer, standing aloof, pale and 
dumb. 

His eyes met her fiery glance unfalteringly ; the face of 
a marble statue could not have been more immovable than 
his. 

Mary flung herself into her cousin’s arms ; her strength 
was exhausted ; she burst into a passion of tears, sobbing, 
“ Tell him to go. I — I am acting like a fool, but I can’t 
help it. Oh, I shall die if he stays a moment longer ; 
make him go !” 

“ May I ask you to leave me with my cousin ?” Violet 
said, in a cold, ceremonious tone, which only deepened the 
effect of her anger. At the instant she again caught sight 
of the duchess peering in at the door, and Violet’s wrath 
rose to such a height that she could not keep back the 
words which sprang to her lips — they uttered themselves 
before she knew she was speaking : “ I will bid you good- 

night, Mr. Aylmer.” 

He gave one start, then stood motionless ; his eyes on 
her face still ; a wondering incredulity in his countenance, 
such as a man might wear when receiving an insult so 
deadly that at first his mind refused to accept its reality. 

Violet comprehended what she had done — absolutely 
turned him out of her house ; but a half-born, frightened 
penitence died beneath the convulsive clasp of Mary’s 
arms — the agony of Mary’s voice as it moaned in her ear : 
“ Make him go — make him go !” 

Laurence Aylmer straightened himself like a person 
struggling against the effect of a powerful physical blow ; 
he stepped forward ; his eyes burned into Violet’s with a 
fire which surpassed that in hers ; as he passed her, he 


EACH BLUNDERS. 


833 


bowed his head, saying, ^‘Good-night, Miss Cameron,” and 
was gone. He walked through tlie corridor as if treading 
the deck of a ship in a storm ; the floor seemed to heave 
beneath his feet, the walls to waver to and fro ; a roar like 
the surge of billows deafened his ears ; an icy perspira- 
tion, like the spray from wintry waves, bedewed his fore- 
head. He reached the antechamber, a servant handed him 
his coat and hat! 

“ Please give me your arm down stairs ; I can scarcely 
stand,” said the duchess’s voice, close behind him. 

He looked at her, and a dreadful wrath shook his soul ; 
a mad impulse to throttle her, as any wild animal with 
cruel instincts ought to be slain, to prevent its working 
further harm. 

“ Laurence, Laurence, give me your arm !” she repeated, 
grasping it as she spoke, as if unable to support herself. 

At the instant, several men came out together from the 
salons, joined them, talked gayly, and, to Aylmers relief, 
hovered about the duchess as they went down stairs, even 
stood beside the carriage after she had entered it. 

But she found an oppoitunity to whisper ; “ To-morrow, 
Laurence, to-morrow !” 

He stepped back wdthout the slightest sign of having 
caught her words. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 
EACH BL1JNDEE8. 


^SSwTiTOLET had no time to spend in consoling Mary, 


or to reflect upon her dismissal of Aylmer — 



she must return to her guests. 


“You had better go 
she said kindly ; “I will 


to your room, dear,” 
come you as soon 


as these tiresome people are gone.” 

“ Oh, I wish I had stayed there !” said Mary. “ I know 
you must be vexed with me ! If I hadn’t been tired and 
upset I should not have behaved so like an idiot — but — 
but 


834 


EACH BLUNDERS, 


A sob checked her utterance in spite of all her efforts 
to restrain her emotion. 

“Vexed with you?” said Violet, kissing her. “Don’t 
think me capable of it ! Now go, dear ; somebody might 
come in.” 

Mary hurried away, and Violet went back to her duties. 

Miss Bronson met her with a mien of sorrowful severity. 

“ Some of your visitors are gone without being able to 
bid you adieu,” she said. “ This may be in keeping with 
continental customs, but I own such negligence on your 
part surprises me beyond expression.” 

“ Perhaps the rest will kindly follow suit very soon,” 
Violet answered, trying to laugh. “ Who has been consid- 
erate enougli to set the example ?” 

“ Mr. Aylmer has just given Madame da Rimini his arm 
down stairs — several gentlemen ” 

Violet did not pause to liear the close of the sentence ; 
Miss Bronson looked after her with saintly, pitying indig- 
nation, and shivered in dread under a prophetic conviction 
that unless she could persuade her friend to exchange that 
heathen land for the refuge of Protestant climes, tlie mis- 
guided creature’s soul would be lost beyond a peradven- 
ture. 

It seemed an almost endless j>eriod to Violet before she 
regained her liberty, but the latest loiterers departed at 
length — she said good-night to Eliza, and hastened towards 
her own rooms. Suddenly the impatience with which she 
had awaited the breaking up of the party was succeeded by 
a regret that the people had not remained and so deferred 
a little longer the explanation she must listen to from 
Mary. The scene she had interrupted left little chance of 
doubt that the suspicions in regard to Aylmer and the 
duchess for which she had so bitterly reproached herself as 
a gross injustice to him, were to be verified, and worse 
than all the rest was the thought of Mary’s trouble. The 
poor girl had not only to endure the ache of her wounded 
heart, but the way in which her dream had been dispelled 
must make the pain still harder to bear. 

After Clarice had ended her ministrations and dis- 
appeared, Violet sat still, hoping that Mary might have 
fallen asleep, which vvould afford a respite until the morrow, 
and give them both an opportunity to reatd) at least an 
appearance of composure. But as she wii? thinking this 


EACH BLUKDEBS. 


835 


the door of the adjoining room opened, and her cousin 
called, in an appealing tone : 

Do come, Violet — do !” 

Miss Cameron obeyed the summons without an instant’s 
hesitation, rendered desperate rather than courageous by a 
sudden intolerable pain away down in her sou! — a paiu 
separate from her sympathy for Mary, her hot indignation 
towards Aylmer — so purely personal that it roused her to 
rage and scorn against herself. 

“ I thought perhaps you were asleep, and so would not 
disturb you,” she said, as she entered the chamber. 

“Oh, I feel as if I should never sleep again,” cried 
Mary, pushing her hair back from her forehead with quick, 
impatient hands. She had turned the lamp low, but the 
shadows falling on her face only deepened the traces left 
by excitement and tears. “ Sit down, Violet, please. I’ve 
been thinking — thinking. I almost made up my mind not 
to tell you — but I ought — it would be wicked not to. ” 

“ Tell me,” said Violet, seating herself with her back to 
the light. 

“ 1 feel — oh, I don’t know to express it !” exclaimed 
Mary. “ I feel soiled — to discover that such wickedness 
really exists ! I have read in books, of coui’se — I am not a 
baby — but actually to know that a married woman can let 
a man make love to her ” 

She broke off with a shudder ; Violet shuddered too, 
with the same overpowering sense of abasement which 
any pure woman must endure when brought face to face 
with sins Vvdiose existence has hitherto belonged to the rec- 
ord of pei'sonally unproven facts. 

“And — and,” continued Mai*y, “when one has re- 
spected the man — thought him so good — oh, it is dread- 
ful !” 

Dreadful indeed ! True, the divscovery that the hereto 
whom her young heart had gone out was unworthy the gift, 
might help the sooner to bring a cure of her sufferings, but 
at tirst it would make the sharpest sting in their pangs. 
Mary’s words showed, however, that she did not mean to 
behave like a weak, ordinary girl ; she had no mind to 
pour out love-sick confessions and appeals for sympathy. 
Violet felt an increased respect for a nature v'hich, bven in 
♦ his earliest, supreme agitation, retained pride and dignity 
enough to hold fast to its secrets, and reflected that on her 


836 


EACH BLUNDEUfl 


own part great care must be taken to avoid any sign of 
suspecting that other emotions than outraged modesty and 
grief at discovering the worthlessness of a valued friend 
had a share in Mary’s agitation. 

I am sorry — oh, so sorry !” she faltered, forced to 
speak lest her silence should appear strange, but able as yet 
to hnd no fitter speech than these commonplace ejacula- 
tions of regret. 

“ Oh, I am sorry too ; but that doesn’t mend matters — 
it only makes them worse !” cried Mary, almost sharply. 

If one didn’t care, it would be easy enough to put it all by ; 
just let them both alone for always, and never think of 
them.” 

“ And is that what must be done in any case ?” Violet 
asked, with a certain maidenly hesitation which Mary 
appreciated. 

“ Oh, I know what your voice means !” she said. “ You 
feel that 3'ou ought to hear, and you can’t bear to listen. 
Indeed, indeed, I wouldn’t tell if I could help it. If it was 
only what I saw, I’d try to think I was coarse — suspicious — 
wicked — only, only how could I? Oh, Violet, she had her 
head on his shoulder !” 

Mary put her hand before her eyes fora moment ; Violet 
turned sick and cold, and sat trembling from head to foot. 

“After that,” she said presently, “there could be no 
possibility of your accusing yourself of unjust suspicions.” 

The firm ring of her voicfe gave Mary coumge ; she had 
told the whole story in one abrupt speech, after trying 
gradually to break her news ; she had told, and Violet had 
been able to listen with perfect composure. But the blow 
had gone home, Mary could not doubt ; her shrewd percep- 
tion had weeks before taught her that this man was more 
to her beautiful cousin than any other of his sex, and in her 
quiet, reasoning fashion she had followed the line of Vio- 
let’s scruples and arguments against the folly of affection 
(of course never dreaming she herself counted in Miss 
Cameron’s determined abnegation) with apers|)icuity which 
many women of double her age and experience would not 
have shown. 

The strongest tide of sympathy which Mary’s eminently 
just but somewhat circumscribed mind and heart had 
ever felt, rushed over her in this moment. She was the 
most undemonstrative of creatures — partly from shyness, 


EACH BLUNDERS. 


337 


partly from an idea that protestations were silly and girl- 
ish — but the impulse which made her pause when she had 
half risen with outstretched arms, eager to enfold and shel- 
ter Violet, did not spring from either motive. She recol- 
lected that such behavior might cause Violet the humiliation 
of dreading that any human being could suppose she 
required comfort ; and Mary knew the proud woman would 
bear her pain unflinchingly if only she might believe it 
unsuspected by others. So the girl dropped back into her 
seat, and Violet thought she had been upon the point of 
breaking down completely, but had checked herself in 
season to restrain a confession which, however much its 
utterance might relieve her for the moment, would always 
afterwards remain the bitterest memory of this bitter woe. 

Mary’s emotions of horror and sympathetic grief sud- 
denly changed to a burst of anger against the woman 
through whose assistance such pain had come to Violet. 

She ought to be burned alive ! Oh, at least you will 
never let her enter your house again !” 

I cannot exclude her and receive him,” Miss Cameron 
replied slowly, wondering a little if the girl, like so many 
of her sex, was ready to seek excuses for the man by throw- 
ing the onus of blame upon the sharer of his evil conduct. 

know, Mary, that many people — even good people — act 
as if there was one law for men and another for women, 
but I cannot do this — I will not !” 

^‘ISTo !” cried Mary. Oh, I hope I shall never see his 
face again ! And he was a coward, too — he skulked off ! 
And to think of her daring to hold me fast and begging 
for sympathy ! She actually did ! She was so wretched, 
and his tenderness had gone straight to her heart, and — 
and — oh, I tell you, Violet, I feel soiled, degraded !” 

And Mary burst into tears again. 

“ ISTo wonder, dear child, no wonder !” 

‘‘ When I got away from her and her dreadful confes- 
sions, he met me ! I suppose he had had time to think 
what to say. He was less reckless than she, and wanted 
me to believe it all meant nothing — but she had made that 
impossible,” Mary hurried on, eager to finish the revolting 
details, though urged by a sense of duty to render every- 
thing clear. He said — oh, never mind his words — I don’t 
remember them !” 

Her abrupt pause, her horrified face, were proofs to 
15 


838 


EACH BLUNDERS. 


Violet that the man had chosen that moment of all others 
to declare his love, believing in his arrogant vanity that he 
could by such avowal effectually blind the girl. 

“ What he said is of no consequence,” Violet answered. 

‘^No, no ! But he wanted me to keep it from you — 
then I flamed out — then you came — that is all !” 

That is all !” Violet involuntarily repeated, with such 
bitter significance in her tone that Mary’s sobs increased. 

“Oh, if 1 had not seen it !” she exclaimed. “Not that 
he might have gone on deceiving us, but if somebody else 
had gone there instead of me !” 

“ My dear, perhaps we should have been inclined to 
doubt — we cannot now. It is hard to have one’s eyes 
opened, but in such a case the sooner the better — you feel 
this ?” 

“ Yes, if you do — I mean, of course !” returned Mary 
tacking on the last clause with great energy while she dried 
her eyes. 

“ Then there is no more to be said just now,” observed 
Violet. 

“ Oh, it is no good to talk and talk — nothing ever comes 
of it !” cried Mary, comprehending that Violet longed to 
be alone. “ I am sure we ought both to be in bed — it is 
fearfully late.” 

Violet thought the girl afraid of prolonging the conver- 
sation lest she should yet betray herself, and rose at once. 
The two cousins kissed each other quietly and separated. 
Mary crept to her pillow, and lay there with head and 
heart in a whirl of misery which made all past trouble look 
small as childish griefs. It seemed actually as if an earth- 
quake had desolated the world, leaving utter chaos in its 
wake. Warner gone ; Aylmer treacherous ; Violet wretched 
— the whole combination of horrors so complete, so unex- 
pected, it appeared like a dreadful dream — all except the 
pain — that was real enough ; but it spoke volumes for 
Mary’s unselfishness that even in these first hours, sympathy 
for her cousin was so strong that it claimed an equal place 
with the personal grief which had smitten her so recently. 

No tumult disturbed Violet’s mind ; no feverish agita- 
tion quickened her pulses ; a deathly coldness enveloped 
her soul, amid which her thoughts fluttered like birds gone 
astray into the depths of an Arctic y^inter, and freezing 
slowly amid its awful chill. 


EACH BLUNDERS. 


389 


It would have been very different to relinquish Aylmer 
to Mary, believing such renunciation for their mutual hap* 
piness, from losing him through the conviction of his 
worthlessness. In the former case she would at least have 
kept him a place in memory as her ideal of manly perfec- 
tion ; but now — now ! And worst of all, her weak heart 
lifted its voice and moaned bitterly over its fallen idol. It 
had been comparatively easy to stifle its rebellious com- 
plaints while she deemed him worthy of Mary — considered 
it plainly a duty, for his sake, to cure that passing fancy 
towards herself, and foster, by every means in her power, 
his affection for this good, pure girl — but it was different 
now. Her ideal did not exist. The man to whom she had 
given its likeness ranked among the false and vicious of his 
sex ! And she had loved him ! — yes, loved him still ! She 
could not deny this truth ; and so stood abased in her own 
sight. 

Violet did not fall asleep until after daylight ; but 
though her dull, heavy slumber lasted for hours, it brought 
no repose : she woke oppressed by the sanae sense of in- 
tense physical and mental fatigue which had been her last 
conscious sensation. 

She rang for Clarice, who speedily appeared with the 
tea-tray, and the information that the clock had struck 
eleven. Violet saw a note lying on her plate. Her first 
thought was that Aylmer had ventured to write with some 
audacious hope of redeeming himself, even yet, in her 
estimation. But Clarice said ; 

“ Miss Mary bade me bring that letter to mademoiselle ; 
she could not wait any longer.” 

“ Has she gone out ?” Violet asked, marveling at the 
girl’s energy. 

‘‘Two hours ago; in such haste to get to her work! 
Truly, truly, I never saw so active a demoiselle ; she is al- 
ways busy,” said Clarice, shaking her head, perhaps to ex- 
press doubt whether such great industry was exactly deco- 
rous in a young lady. 

Violet motioned the woman to leave her, and hastily 
opened the billet. 

“ I shall not speak of what has happened unless you do,” 
Mary wrote. “ I am sorry I let myself betray so much ex- 
citement ; but I know I did right in telling you. Please 
forgive me, and be sure I love you dearly, and am very 


840 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


grateful to you, though I have so little ability to express 
what I feel, that if you were not the best and most gener- 
ous woman in the world, you would very often doubt both 
my affection and my gratitude.” 

Brief as the note was, its composition cost Mary a great 
deal of trouble. She wanted to make Violet feel at ease in 
her society ; certain of not being irritated and hurt by 
open speech or galling allusions ; yet to leave her undis- 
turbed by any suspicion of the motive which caused such 
reticence. 

Violet read, and thought : The brave girl ; she goes 
the right way to work to cure herself, and she will do it. 
Ah, she is young ! They can live past everything, those 
young people.” 

The proud woman shed a few tears in her solitude, but 
they were an additional pang instead of a relief ; it was 
disgraceful for her to sit and cry like some miss in her teens. 
She felt harder towards Laurence Aylmer with each burn- 
ing drop that fell from her eyes. This should be the end ; 
she would receive neither him nor the woman again ; if 
necessary, in order to avoid comments and questions, she 
would leave Florence very soon. After all, perhaps this 
might be her best course. A change would benefit Mary : 
she could pursue her art studies in Rome or Paris, and 
might find life easier when set free from the associations 
which haunt a spot where one has known bitter grief, be- 
coming daily and hourly reminders which help sorrow to 
retain its tyrannical sway. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

HER LAST EFFORT. 

HEN Laurence Aylmer hurried away from Miss 
Cameron’s house, the uppermost sensation in 
the chaotic whirl of his mind was a fierce indig- 
nation against her ; a wondering horror mingled 
therewith, if it could be really true that so dire 
an insult had been heaped upon him. Absolutely turned 



HER LAST EFFORT. 


841 


out of doors ; dismissed with cold sternness, like an imper- 
tinent lackey ! It was so incredible, so unlike any slight 
or injury which a gentleman could imagine ever befalling 
him, that it appeared fairly a delusion. Aylmer almost 
expected to wake suddenly, find himself in his own rooms, 
and discover that the events of the evening existed only in 
his troubled fancy. 

He wandered about the streets for hours, not re- 
turning to his lodgings until chill gleams of light 
warned him that day was at hand. He slept for awhile, 
and dreamed of sitting beside Violet, and telling the story 
of his love. Not the faintest shadow separated their souls 
— not a recollection of the past month’s unrest, or the 
night’s bitter trouble, disturbed the course of that beatific 
vision. Of course, when the mocking dream faded, its 
contrast to the truth rendered reality more odious ; but his 
first excitement had died, his anger was gone. No wonder 
Miss Cameron had dealt him that verbal blow. She must 
have caught Mary Danvers’s passionate outbreak — must 
have seen the duchess peer in at the door. He had, even 
amid the confusion of his faculties, likened her to some 
devil incarnate, pausing to exult over its evil work. 

The ruin was irremediable. Mary would describe the 
whole scene to her cousin ; the incoherent appeal he had 
attempted must only appear an additional proof of his 
guilt. Yes, the duchess had ruined his every hope. To 
tell the truth would only cover him with deeper infamy ; 
Miss Cameron’s verdict, and every other person’s, would be 
that a man capable of intimating a woman had made love 
to him, was so mean, that even though he could prove his 
assertion, he deserved a greater measure of contempt than 
if he bore in silence the most sweeping circumstantial evi- 
dence against himself. 

The day passed ; he could not bear to go out — to meet 
people — to be fretted by idle talk. He began several let- 
ters to Miss Cameron, and tore them up in turn ; each 
seemed more insane than its predecessor in its vague de- 
mands for her merciful judgment upon an occurrence con- 
cerning which he had no explanation to offer. Sometimes 
he passionately upbraided her in his thoughts, and anathe- 
matized his own folly for supposing that she could ever be 
brought to care for him. Had she felt the slightest tender- 
ness she must have been less hasty and absolute in her con- 


843 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


demnation. Then his mood would change, and he ad' 
mitted that she was right to behave as she had ; no pure* 
minded woman could have acted otherwise. Had he been 
her betrothed husband, her affection might well have 
stopped short of the possibility of faith in his blameless- 
ness. 

Late in the afternoon he rode out ; made a pretense of 
dining at a little osteria miles away from Florence, and re- 
turned late in the evening, having had at least the comfort 
of escaping the sight of a familiar face. 

A note lay on his writing-table. It was from the Signora 
da Rimini. He felt inclined to tear the billet up unread ; 
but that would be silly ; so he opened it, sickened by its 
perfume, angry at the illegibility of the chirography, which 
rendered much close attention necessary in order to de- 
cipher the page. 

Have you forgotten that I told you I should expect 
to see you to-day, dear friend ? I have waited in vain, and 
your failure to keep your promise seems unkind — although 
I will not wrong you by so harsh a word, even in my 
thoughts, since you must know how great need I have of 
your advice. 

Heaven only can imagine the tales that idiotic girl 
may invent ! I trust to your friendship, whatever hap- 
pens, since it was through my friendship for you that the 
trouble arose. I need not say that I forgive you : this note 
is of itself a proof.” 

Go near her ! ISTot he ! Let her say and do what she 
pleased : she was powerless to harm him further. She had 
ruined his life; let her rest content with her work, and 
leave him alone ! 

The next day, a commission which he had received from 
the professor took him into the street where the odious 
woman lived. He was hurrying past the gloomy old palace 
without even a glance, but, as he reached the entrance, a 
carriage drove up. He raised his eyes, and saw the duchess. 
She leaned forward, and said : ‘‘I am back just in time to 
receive your visit. Thanks for coming. I thought I should 
find you on my return.” 

She gave him one of her sweetest smiles, but a quick 
fancy crossed his mind that the great black eyes held a cer- 
tain menace in their slumberous depths. He stood for a 
second irresolute whether he should go in or walk on, re- 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


843 


gardless of her speech ; saw her look back ; took a sudden 
resolution and followed the landau into the courtyard. So 
much the better if she were angry, and showed it by bitter 
or upbraiding words ; in that case her conduct might afford 
him the relief of frank, honest avowals. 

By the time he traversed the quadrangle the footman 
had opened the carriage-door ; the duchess was waiting. 
He could do no less than offer his arm for her to descend, 
and she kept her hand upon it as they mounted the stairs, 
talking pleasantly the while about indifferent matters, but 
with an audible tremor in her voice, intended to impress 
upon him the fact that her idle remarks were only for the 
benefit of the servant who followed with her wraps. 

They reached her favorite salon ; the instant the door 
closed behind the domestic, the duchess flung herself 
into a seat, and put both hands before her face, exclaim- 
ing : 

“ Oh, Aylmer, Aylmer, how could you leave me all this 
dreary time without a word of consolation or advice !” 

She had made up her mind what to do ; if any encour- 
agement on her part would lead him into an exhibition of 
tenderness, such encouragement should not be wanting ; 
whatever his real feelings, she would take him away from 
Violet Cameron if it were possible. 

Without a word,” she repeated. Oh, it was cruel, 
cruel !” 

Each syllable she uttered only added to his exaspera- 
tion ; the very grace of her attitude only made him think 
of a snake, and increased his loathing. 

“ I could not suppose that my coming was of the slight- 
est importance, or my advice either, if I had any to offer 
upon any subject,” he answered, in a voice elaborately 
courteous, but hard as iron. 

The duchess peeped at him through her fingers ; the 
face she saw was hard as the voice which had warned her 
that so far her burst of emotion produced no visible effect. 

‘‘ Both were of vital consequence,” she said. Think 
of the position in which I am placed ; my reputation at the 
mercy of that girl and her cousin ; a garbled story likely 
to reach my husband’s ears — and I am afraid of him ; yes, 
afraid !” ^ 

She still kept her hands raised, and sobbed and choked 
in the most artistic manner ; but Laurence would hava 


844 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


appeared deaf and utterly indifferent, had it not been for 
the obstinate expression which showed in every feature. 

Aylmer, Aylmer !” she exclaimed, piteously, as he 
remained silent under her appeals. 

“ I can assure you of one thing,” he said, slowly, you 
have no need to disquiet yourself where those ladies are 
concerned.” 

She let her hands drop ; her eyes flashed as she asked : 
They talked with you; what did they say? I insist 

upon knowing ; 1 have the right ” 

Oh, it is very easy to tell,” he interrupted, with a 
bitter little laugh. “ Miss Cameron asked me to leave her 
house ; our interview began and ended with that request.” 

“ J)io mio .^” groaned the duchess, and hid her face 
again, but this time to conceal the exultation she knew it 
must betray. “ Was that all ? what did you do ?” 

I found it quite enough,” he replied ; “ I obeyed, of 
course ! I think I met you and gave you my arm down 
stairs.” 

The duchess had found leisure to school her counte- 
nance anew. She rose suddenly, hesitated for a second, 
then hurried towards him, holding out both hands. 

“Don’t mind,” she said, her voice trembling with an 
eagerness which was unfeigned. “ If my friendship can be 
of the slightest comfort, be sure you have it ! Oh, I v/as 
selfish ; see, I don’t care ! No matter what comes, I am 
your friend ; no matter at what cost, I am ready to 
prove it.” 

Aylmer did not offer to take the extended hands ; he 
looked full at her, and said with' a cold smile : 

“Madame da Rimini does me too much honor. Our 
brief acquaintance could afford me no claim to accept a 
sacrifice of any sort from her goodness.” 

“It would be none !” she exclaimed, laying her clasped 
hands on his shoulder. “ Oh, Aylmer, don’t you under- 
stand ?” 

He did not stir — not a line of his face changed. 

“I ought perhaps to be able to thank you for your 
offered friendship,” he said, in the same chill, monotonous 
tone, “ but I am a dull man ; at present I can only think of 
the one thing which is of any moment in my life.” 

“ What do you mean ?” she asked, removing her hands 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


345 


from his shoulder and retreating a few steps, the better to 
look at him with her angry eyes. 

‘‘ I mean that I have lost the last hope of winning the 
one woman I ever loved, or ever shall love,” he answered. 

Certainly, when he entered the room he had no thought 
of making the confession, but her words and manner^ 
goaded him into such wrath that it was a relief to fling the 
avowal at her, for the meekest man alive could not have 
helped admitting to himself that the lady meant him to be 
tender and adoring. 

“You love Violet Cameron?” the duchess fairly gasped, 

“ With all my heart and soul !” he replied steadily. 

The woman turned livid through her rouge ; her eyes 
blazed ; her hands involuntarily clenched themselves, as she 
hissed out : 

“ You tell me that to my face — you dare !” 

“ I thought such frankness the best proof I could give 
of how thoroughly I appreciate the offer of friendship you 
just made,” returned he ; and now a faint tone of mockery 
was audible in his slow, passionless speech. 

The duchess retreated still farther ; one hand caught at 
the ruff which encircled her throat — her eyes were posi- 
tively terrible as they glanced towards a dagger lying upon 
the table by her side — and the fingers of the other hand 
worked convulsively, as if ready to seize it. Her Sicilian 
blood was roused to its hottest fury ; the animal instinct to 
kill — destroy — seized her with its fullest might. 

In another instant she dropped into a chair, and pointed 
to the door. 

“ Go out !” she said, in a voice so choked that, except 
for the gesture, her words would have been unintelligible. 

“ Go this instant !” 

“ Good-morning, madame,” Aylmer said, as calmly as if 
ending the most commonplace interview. 

He bowed as he spoke, and walked away. Before he 
had taken a dozen steps he heard her call imperiously : 

“ Stop !” 

He turned slowly ; the duchess moved forward till she 
stood within a few paces of him ; her face was actually dis- 
torted with rage, and her eyes glared like a panther’s. 

“ You have insulted me,” she said, in a breathless way, 

“ In my country we avenge insults, do you know ?” 

16 * 


846 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


In what manner have I erred, madame ?” he asked, 
composedly. 

“ So you wanted to marry Violet Cameron !” she hur- 
ried on. Well, you shall never do it — remember that !” 

I had just informed you, madame, that any such hope 
had been killed in my heart,” he answered. 

‘‘ Your heart !” she repeated. You have none. You 
wanted her money — everybody knows that — don’t try to 
deceive me !” 

Aylmer started as if she had struck him ; checked the 
words which sprang to his lips ; bowed again, and walked 
on. The duchess rushed past, and stood b^etween him and 
the door. 

Wait till I have finished !” she ordered ; “even a bar- 
barian from America should have knowledge enough of 
civilized usages to show as much decency as that !” 

“ I am listening, madame.” 

It was well the duchess had not the dagger within reach 
at this instant ; she certainly would have stabbed him be- 
fore getting her senses back sufiiciently to reflect. She 
shut her eyes for a little ; her head reeled, and she saw 
every object through a sort of red haze, from the force Avith 
which the blood mounted to her brain. 

“You lie when you say you have given up hope!” 
she cried. “ You think to make your peace by sacrificing 
me ! You will say that I made love to you ; why, you are 
such a dolt that perhaps you thought I meant to — thought 
I cared for you ! Come, I’ll tell you the truth — that shall 
be the beginning of my revenge !” 

Her breath failed her again — she was obliged to pause. 
He stood waiting till she should be pleased to continue. 

“ I hated Violet Cameron,” she went on presently. “ I 
knew it would fret her to see any man devoted to me — 
not that she cared for you, or ever would have done. And 
I had another reason for wanting your attentions ; because, 
if I seemed to tolerate them, it would tease another man — 
a man I love. Do you hear ?” 

“ Shall I leave you now, madame?” asked Aylmer. 

“ And if she had been fool enough to love you,” pursued 
the duchess, “you should not have her ! If there were a 
hope of your making your peace, I’d ruin it, if I had to 
swear that you had been my lover — yes, I would ! Let me 
tell you the person she loves as much as she is capable of lov- 


HER LAST EFFORT. 


347 


ing — Carlo Magnoletti ; and he wanted her to marry you 
because that would make matters easier for him — he told 
me so ” 

Before she could end her sentence,. Aylmer was gone. 
He hurried out of the house. A fiacre was passing as he 
reached the street ; he hailed it, jumped in, and bade the 
coachman drive to the Porta Romana, and then take the 
Straka dei Colli — the pictureesque road which winds up 
the hill of San Miniato, on whose summit frowns the old 
convent that Michel Angelo once fortified. Near by stands 
the cypress-guarded little church which the great sculptor 
called his ‘‘ country maid and just below stretches the 
piazza bearing his name, with a bronze statue of the David 
lifting his inspired front to the blue sky. 

Aylmer dismissed the carriage at the top of the ascent, 
and wandered about ; saw the sun set over the beautiful 
city nestled in the valley beneath ; saw the twilight shadows 
gather over Monte Morello and the long range of purple 
hills ; watched the moon rise and glorify every object with 
its radiance ; and felt, as we all do in moments of keen 
suffering, that every sight and sound of beauty and peace 
became an additional pang. 

At last he descended the zigzag paths and flights of 
steps which lead directly down to the Porta San Niccolo, 
crossed the Ponte alle Grazie (or rather, the modern 
structure which the mania for improving and destroying 
has given us in place of the old bridge, with its storied 
dwellings where sanctified nuns dwelt in other days), and 
returned to his lodgings. 

The porter told him that his German friend had called 
during his absence — the fierce signore with the beard.” 
So the professor had come back sooner than he intended ; 
but Aylmer could not feel sorry at having missed him. 
The keen-eyed savant would quickly have discovered that 
something was amiss, and been troubled by Laurence’s 
inability to explain, though no doubt he would have taken 
great pains to hide his disquietude under an affectation of 
extreme crustiness. 

Aylmer found several letters lying on his table, and he 
opened them one after another, more to occupy his thoughts 
for a few minutes than because he cared to learn their 
contents. 

Among them was an epistle from America, bringing 


848 


HER LA8T EFFORT. 


news of the death of the relative after whom he inherited 
the large fortune which had been hers for life — a distant 
cousin of his father’s whom he had seen but twice, so that 
no regret for her loss could mingle with his reflections. 

There was also unlooked-for tidings in regard to those 
speculations he had been drawn into by George Danvers. 
One of the mines had resumed work, a new drift having 
been discovered, so valuable that stockholders might soon 
expect to receive dividends ; and the prosperous state of 
affairs was considered so certain by competent judges, that 
the shares had already gone up enough in the market to 
render their sale a profitable affair to any person who 
wished to be rid of his portion. 

And the good tidings came, as it so often does to 
mortals, at the very moment when it seemed an added 
mockery on the part of fate, after snatching away the only 
gift which could bring happiness. 

Aylmer flung the letters upon the table, and buried his 
face in his hands. For the time even his courage, his power 
of endurance, had deserted him ; his burden seemed 
harder than he could bear. 

And the duchess ? 

A few seconds after Aylmer’s departure, the door of an 
inner salon opened. Madame da Rimini looked up, and 
saw Giorgio Dimetri standing upon the threshold, intently 
regarding her, with a smile upon his handsome, evil face. 

“ What are you doing there ?” she called. 

“The servant informed me that you had a visitor. Like 
a well-bred creature I waited in the next room till he took 
his departure,” replied the Greek. “ Of course I was 
bound to wait, because you had appointed this time for 
another little trial, to be certain that you are perfect in the 
art of dealing cards at baccarat.” 

The duchess looked at him fixedly. 

“ You could hear every word,” she said. “ That door 
does not latch. How long were you in the other room ?” 

“ Only a few minutes,” he answered. “ I heard you 
tell the American your reasons for wanting his attentions.” 

“ Dimetri !” cried the duchess, “ you say you love me 
— you say you are jealous of that man — yet you let him 
live — you, the best swordsman in Italy — you, that are one 
of the few men living who know the secret of Lachasse’s 
thrust !” 


8TILL HER WORK 


849 


She spoke very quietly — an awful smile on her lips. 

I love you,” he replied ; and though his voice was as 
low as hers, it held a ring of repressed passion, accentuated 
by the eager light in his eyes. “ He lives because you told 
me that if I quarreled with him I should never see your 
face again. 1 have been very patient, and I am not a 
patient man ” 

“ You have the proof that I told you the truth when I 
said I was playing a game where he was concerned,” she 
interrupted. 

I have proof, at least, that you hate him now — and 
after ?” 

‘^Ah,” exclaimed the duchess, with an indescribable 
emphasis of ferocity, the rest is in your hands ! Go 
away — I am in no mood for baccarat — go !” 

And when shall I come back 

When you have done your work,” she answered. 

For a moment they stood gazing full into each other’s 
eyes with glances of terrible significance. Then the 
duchess waved her hand in dismissal, and he went silently 
out of the room. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 


STILL HER WORK. 



ART DANVERS stood in one of the library- 
windows, looking out through the twilight 
across the shadowy garden. During these two 
days no allusion had been made by Violet or 
herself to that evening whose events gave so 
much occupation to the minds of both. Mary knew that 
her cousin suffered terribly, little sign as she gave. Violet 
marveled at the courage with which the girl supported the 
blow that had befallen her, but, fearful of inflicting fresh 
wounds, abstained from sympathy either in look or word ; 
and Mary, animated by similar feelings, was equally care- 
ful in her turn. 

Could Violet have known the truth in regard to her 
young relative, she might have admired her courage even 


S50 


STILL HER WORK 


more, for Mary was bearing that heaviest of human bur- 
dens — suspense ; bearing it too with the consciousness that 
these were only the birth-throes of a pain which might 
last an indefinite time — months — years — oh, perhaps never 
to be stilled in this world. 

But her dread of exaggeration — her method of rigidly 
inspecting all matters to be certain what was real, what 
fancy (a habit not growing out of any lack of imagination, 
only the result of guarding against the encroachments of 
that faculty upon the judgment), stood her in good stead 
now, and prevented the unmeasured grief which most per- 
sons of her age would have indulged. 

Gilbert Warner had gone away loving her — common- 
sense assured her there was every evidence of this, and 
therefore she could not think their separation lasting, dol- 
orous as the circumstances rendered it. 

Impossible for her to make any sign so long as he re- 
mained silent — the bare chance that her first fears might 
have held some truth must hinder her — but she could wait ! 
And there were things in her favor ; he would communi- 
cate with his friends, learn at length that his suspicions of 
her caring for another were unfounded, and the knowledge 
might of itself open his eyes. 

The proofs which brought her so great comfort grew 
in number and strength as she reviewed the course of their 
acquaintance. Why, the very keeping the portrait he 
had painted for Violet was enough to show that he had 
not been indifferent. And he had kept it, she knew — it 
was to follow him on his journey — Miss Vaughton had told 
her so the morning after his departure. When Mary 
reached the studio, she found the venerable lady in a state 
of great wonderment and regret, declaring over and over, 
according to the habit of women of her type when sur- 
prised by unexpected tidings, that anybody might have 
knocked her down with a feather on the reception of the 
news. 

‘‘Why, you had been gone but a little while when he 
came bustling in — so hurried he had hardly time to say 
good-by — and no wonder, with his trunks to pack yet, and 
forty other things to do. I’m sure he must have forgotten 
half he wanted to take — not an under-shirt with him. I’ll 
warrant — young men are so careless !” 

Mary, busy with her own refiections, lost the thread of 


STILL HER WORK. 


351 


the old lady’s discourse, and the benefit of a harrowing tale 
of what had once befallen a youthful relative of Miss 
Vaugh ton’s, from forgetfulness of those useful garments. 

When she could listen again, the prophetess was chant- 
ing slowly : 

But, as he said, if he had got here too late he could go 
to the house and see you. Yes, indeed ; of course you 
were surprised — I don’t need to be told that,” she added, 
as defiantly as if Mary had cast a slight upon her by pro- 
testations of astonishment. ‘‘ And one box to be sent after 
him — James offered to attend to it — the pictures couldn’t 
be packed in time. Oh, I was not to mention about 
that ” 

Mention what ?” Mary asked, as the old lady paused 
and stared in a helpless way. 

Yes, to be sure ! Or was it the studio man’s trying to 
cheat I was not to speak of?” pursued Miss Vaughton. 

Really, with so much put on one’s mind all at once, no 
wonder one gets confused — now is it?” 

Certainly not ! But there can be no secret connected 
with his — Mr. Warner’s pictures,” said Mary. 

‘‘Ah, one never knows what there may be secrets about 
in a young man’s life !” cried Miss Vaughton, with an air 
of profound wisdom. “ Not but what Gilbert is a model 
— no danger of his secrets being wrong — no, no — don’t tell 
me that — /lobody — wohody need tell me that !” 

“ So the pictures are to be packed and sent after him,” 
continued Mary, regardless of this energetic outburst, in 
her desire to learn if the thought which sprang up in her 
mind was well founded. 

“ Oh yes — now if that was the secret, or whether it was 
about Miss Lane — oh no, it was Leonard Go wan who was 
engaged to her ! Dear me, so many young men and their 
affairs — and always the same — though Gilbert’s worry was 
over his pictures too ; but worry as he might, they couldn’t 
be packed in time — and Ke put yours in because he said he 
wanted to work on it more. Oh, I wasn’t to mention it ; 
but no matter, it is your cousin he wants to surprise with 
it, and you are not her, though, Mary, as good a girl as ever 
lived, I know ; and what is beauty — skin deep — not to say 
you are plain and may equal her yet, though James says she 
really is a marvel, and enough to drive a sculptor or painter 
mad ; though, as I told him, good gracious, that’s not the 


852 


STILL HER WORK. 


sort of thing to say of any lady, married or not ; and, 
Mary, it really is odd, with all her admirers ” 

But luckily her old tyrant of a servant summoned her 
at the instant, and left Mary free to reflect on that one 
clause in her rambling account so pregnant with meaning. 

'News she had this day received from America helped to 
render hopefulness easier. If matters went on as they had 
begun, her father’s debts could be paid, and his memory 
freed from any aspersion. Ah ! in the presence of such 
probability she would be utterly wicked to sit down and 
moan over her own private woes ; then, too, the fact that a 
change so unexpected, so cheering, could come in regard to 
things which had seemed irrevocably settled, was a good 
omen for Fate’s kindness in other particulars, however dark 
the present might look. 

Mary’s meditations were interrupted by her cousin’s 
entrance. 

“ Have we kept you waiting for dinner until you arc 
famished ?” Yiolet asked, as she approached the window. 

Oh no, I had pleasant company,” Mary answered, 
holding up her book ; then her troublesome conscience 
smote her, as it always did at the slightest approach to pre- 
varication ; but Miss Bronson appeared at the instant and 
made herself involuntarily the aid of conscience, as it was 
natural so virtuous a woman always should. 

‘‘My dear, I hope you were not trying to read by this 
dim light,” she said ; “ there is nothing so bad for the 
eyes.” 

“No ; I shut my book some time since,” returned Mary. 

“ I was glad you did not go with us,” continued Miss 
Cameron ; “ the tramontana is blowing, and it would have 
been bad for your throat.” 

“I think you ought to tie something round your neck, 
Mary,” added JMiss Bronson. 

“It is so warm here !” pleaded she. 

“ And one is so hideous muffled up ; I’d rather have a 
sore throat, I am sure,” cried Miss Cameron. 

“ What a sentiment ! what an example/ to set Mary if 
she were to believe you in earnest !” ejaculated Eliza. 

But her expostulations were checked by a servant’s an- 
nouncing Professor Schmidt. 

“ He wanted to make sure you were visible,” called the 
savant, “ but I would not wait ; I came on purpose to get 


STILL HER WORK 


353 


my dinner, and I must have it ! ' How do you all do ? You 
look like the three Fates in this gloom,” he continued, for 
the professor had a horror of sitting in the twilight. 

think you might find a more poetical comparison to 
greet us with, after your cruel absence,” said Violet, hurry- 
ing forward to meet him with outstretched hands. ‘‘I am 
delighted to see you back ! We did not venture to hope 
lor that pleasure before to-morrow ; and how nice of you 
to think of coming to dine with us.” 

“ I always like to gratify my worthy friend Adolf 
Schmidt when I can,” replied the professor. “Besides, 
when I got home I found the tailor had sent me a new 
dress-coat, and I wanted you all to admire it.” 

Even Miss Bronson laughed heartily at the recollections 
aroused by his words, and the old savant released Violet’s 
hands from his sturdy grasp, and passed on to seize the 
spinster’s with the energy which he put into every action. 

“ My dear Miss Bronson, I am glad to find that you have 
survived my absence ! I have been greatly troubled — was 
on the point of turning back before I reached Bologna. I 
had such terrible fears that my departure really might be 
more than your sensitive nature could endure ; but you 
seem to have borne it better than I dared to hope.” 

“I consoled myself by looking forward to your return,” 
replied the spinster, with an appreciation she seldom vouch- 
safed his humorously-teasing speeches. 

“ And how is my American sweetbriar ?” continued the 
prefessor, addressing Mary. “It is so dark, I can’t see any 
of your faces. Of all unaccountable fancies, this sitting in 
Cimmerian blackness is the most outrageous.” 

“ Luckily, here comes. Antonio to announce dinner,” 
said Violet ; “ so give me your arm, professor, and you shall 
be takeu in searjsh oLa little light. 

‘'They were scarcely seated at table before the savant 
asked : 

“ And how is Laurence Aylmer ? I drove to his rooms 
on my way from the station, but the wretched fellow was 
out.” ' 

It chanced that Violet and Mary were glancing towards 
each other as the professor spoke, and both averted their 
eyes with a sort of guilty consciousness. 

“ Quite well, I fancy,” Miss Cameron said indifferently. 

“ Why, Violet,” exclaimed Miss Bronson, “ he has not 


854 


STILL HER WORE. 


been here for two days — not since your reception — and he 
went away so suddenly that I thought it odd !” 

^‘Two days — what an immense period !” said Violet, 
laughing. ‘‘ You see, professor, that Miss Bronson is as 
accurate as ever.” 

‘‘Yes, yes, I see,” returned the professor, his quick ear 
struck by an undefinable something in Violet’s tone, care- 
lessly as she spoke ; but she began asking questions about 
his little excursion to Verona, and he followed the lead she 
gave the conversation. 

In a few minutes, however, he again made mention of 
Aylmer. He noticed that it was Miss Bronson who 
replied ; and this time Mary began talking of something 
else as soon as the spinster gave her an opportunity. 

Before the dinner had half ended, the professor felt 
confident that something had happened to offend Miss 
Cameron, and that Mary Danvers shared in the secret ; but 
what his beloved Laurence could have done to annoy her 
was more than he could conceive, and he could not at 
present relieve his mind by any inquiries. 

The professor’s spectacled eyes could see very clearly 
if he had special motives therefor ; and when Violet 
avoided hearing some mention he made of Madame da 
Rimini, he could have sworn that the woman was at the 
bottom of whatever disturbance or misconception had 
arisen. He had many times warned his two favorites, and 
the Magnoletti also, that if they continued to tolerate the 
duchess she would work mischief in some fashion, though 
he had expected Carlo’s gambling propensities to cause the 
trouble rather than any ability on her part to aleniate Miss 
Cameron and Aylmer. 

However, the dinner passed off gayly enough, and 
Violet seemed in her usual spirits. While they were 
taking coffee, she said : 

“ Professor, you must do me a favor. I am going to 
Lady Harcourt’s. You have never been, in spite of all her 
invitations. Now, be amiable, and accompany me. There 
will only be a few people — people you know, too.” 

“ Ugh !” said the professor, with a grimace. 

“You must!” persisted Violet. “Miss Bronson has 
another engagement, and you cannot possibly leave a 
timid, tender young creature like myself to enter a salon 


STILL HER WORE. 


855 


chaperonless and unprotected ; besides, you want an oppor- 
tunity to display your new coat.” 

‘‘ That is an irresistible inducement — I’ll go,” said the 
professor. 

He knew that in all probability Aylmer would be there, 
and the prospect of a speedy explanation of the mystery he 
had discovered — if Laurence could give any — was enough 
to dispose the savant to compliance with Violet’s request. 

Mary remained with the professor while the other two 
ladies went to Miss Bronson’s room, the spinster at the last 
moment being undecided between the merits of a couple of 
head-dresses, and pathetically begging Violet’s judgment 
thereupon. 

“So you are working hard, my little girl,” said the pro- 
fessor, when they were left alone. “Too hard, I am afraid. 
You look somewhat tired.” 

“ I ? Oh no ” 

“ None of that !” interrupted the savant, savagely. 
“ I’ll send you a dose of the bitterest medicine ever con- 
cocted if you attempt to fib.” 

“ I never do, and you know it,” said Mary, who was 
warmly attached to the gruff old man. 

“ There’s something wrong with both of you !” cried 
the professor. “ I ask no questions ; I shall find out ; you 
can’t deceive me with your little feminine artifices.” 

“ We don’t want to,” said Mary. 

“ H’m !” quoth the professor. “ Well, you are impossi- 
ble creatures, you women. Why in the deuce did you 
send Gilbert Warner away with a sore heart, I should like 
to know ? I saw him at Verona — a pretty state of mind he 
was in ! Not a word would he say — but I knew ! Potz- 
tausend ! The idea of nature arranging matters so that an 
absurd young insect like you has the power to sting the 
heart cf a big, strong, noble fellow like that !” 

Before Mary had time to answer, even had she possessed 
the power, Antonio entered in search of the coffee-tray, and 
directly after Miss Cameron and Eliza returned. 

“ Miss Bronson will drop us at Lady Harcourt’s on her 
way to Mrs. Mainwaring’s,” said Violet, and destroyed a 
hope the professor had indulged that he might have an op- 
portunity of asking her a few inquisitorial questions during 
the drive. 

As the carriage rolled out of the court, Laurence Ayl- 


356 


STILL HER WORK, 


mer passed along the street and caught sight of Miss Cam- 
eron. He knew where she was going ; he had received a 
note from Lady Harcourt, telling him that if he failed to 
come to her that night he need never expect forgiveness : 
promising that, as a reward for good behavior, he slioiild 
have the happiness of hearing Miss Cameron sing — a favor 
she sometimes vouchsafed her intimate friends when they 
were en petit comite. 

Having no mind to expose himself to unnecessary tor- 
ture, Aylmer had decided not to go. He dined in his own 
rooms — or made a pretense of doing so — and until towards 
ten o’clock remained there alone, the prey of his bitter re- 
flections. His solitude became unsupportable ; he dressed 
hurriedly and left the house with the intention of going to 
Mrs. Mainwaring’s. Why, to reach her residence, he took 
a route so roundabout as to pass through the piazza where 
the Amaldi Palace stood, was a question he refrained from 
asking until the sight of Miss Cameron’s carriage suddenly 
roused him to fierce invectives against his own folly. 

He could not get quickly enough away from the spot : 
he jumped into a cab and drove to the club, forgetting until 
he reached it that he had started from home meaning more 
hopelessly to addle his brains by spending an hour at his 
literary countrywoman’s aesthetic conversazione. But it 
was no matter — the society he should find at the club would 
answer bis purpose just as well. Anything, anybody to 
take his thoughts away for a little from the persistent med- 
itations of the last two days, was all he wanted. 

As he got out of the cab, Alexis Sabakine came down 
the club-house steps and seized upon him at once. 

“ Where, in heaven’s name, have you been hiding ?” he 
asked. I have called on you twice — never in — Carlo away 
at Perugia — Landini ill. I was getting disgusted, and half 
inclined to cut Florence without delay. But you can’t 
escape now. I promised to look in at Stanhope’s rooms : 
after that will go to La Harcourt’s, or anywhere you 
please.” 

His coupk was waiting, and he fairly dragged Aylmer 
into it, talking so fast in his satisfaction at having found 
congenial companionship that Laurence had little to do but 
listen and reply in monosyllables. 

As they entered Stanhope’s salon, that gentleman 
appeared from an inner room, and before he dropped the 


STILL HER WORK. 


357 


curtain which hung over the doorway, the new-comers 
caught a glimpse of three men seated at a table playing 
cards. 

‘‘ Hallo, Sabakine, I thought you’d forgotten your 
promise !” cried the Englishman, in his loud, ringing voice. 
“ Why, Aylmer, is that you or your ghost ? Delighted to 
see you, old man ! Sabakine, you hardened sinner ” 

‘‘ I have received the papers ; don’t say I’m not punc- 
tual,” interrupted the Russian, taking an envelope from his 
pocket and laying it on the table. 

‘‘ That’s a good fellow !” returned the other. Just let 
me run my eye over them, and then I shall be ready to do 
the civil. You must both stop — we shall be just enough 
for a rubber, and leave Gherardi and you, Sabakine, to your 
favorite ecarte.” 

“Who else is in there?” asked the Russian, pointing 
towards the door of the second room. 

“Pandolfini and Dimetri ” 

“ That fellow !” interrupted Sabakine, in a low tone, 
with a gesture of disgust. “ I wonder why we tolerate him.” 

“ Oh, I dare say he is no w^orse than the rest of us,” replied 
the easy-going Stanhope ; and added in a louder tone : 
“Aylmer, amuse yourself for a few minutes — there are 
weeds and bottles — while Sabakine explains these docu- 
ments. Goodness knows when I may catch him again.” 

Aylmer went to the farthest end of the salon, to be be 
yond earshot of their conversation. He was standing near 
the curtain, partially drawn back so that he could see into 
the other chamber — be seen perfectly also by the Greek ; 
for, though Dimetri had his back that w^ay, a large mirror 
hung opposite his chair, and, as Aylmer looked, he saw 
their two images reflected therein. Dimetri had evidently 
just finished speaking ; his companions held their cards in 
their hands and stared at him, but his fierce black eyes 
were fixed on the mirror. 

“ Pr-r-r, Dimetri, that is rather strong gossip, even for 
Florence !” exclaimed Gherardi. 

“ I’ll wager what you please it will be more than gossip 
in less than a month,” returned the Greek, looking at Lau- 
rence Aylmer’s reflection with an insulting smile. 

“ Come, come !” added Pandolfini. “La belle Ameri- 
caine is too wise-headed a woman for such nonsense ; it’s 
too bad to talk of her in that way.” 


358 


STILL HER WORK. 


You are wonderfully scrupulous !” sneered Diraetri. 

I see no reason for being more chary of her reputation 
than of any other woman’s ! Since Violet Cameron has a 
married man for a lover ” 

Before he could finish his sentence, Laurence Aylmer 
flung the curtain back and dashed into the room. The 
Greek saw him coming, sprang out of his chair, and con- 
fronted him ; but Aylmer was too quick. As Dimetri 
raised his hand, Laurence dealt him a blow full in the face, 
so sudden, so heavy, that he barely saved himself from fall- 
ing by seizing hold of the table. 

The other men started up with broken exclamations, 
and rushed between the two. The noise roused the pair in 
the outer salon, and they hurried in. 

Aylmer stood still. The Greek wiped the blood from 
his mouth with his handkerchief, such triumphant satisfac- 
tion in the regard he fastened upon Laurence, that Saba- 
kine, noticing it, decided at once that the insult, whatever 
it might be, which Aylmer had so promptly punished, had 
been premeditated, and the results exactly what Dimetri 
desired. 

“ Stanhope,” the Greek said composedly, “ with your 
permission I’ll go into your bedroom and wash my face. 
Please come with me, Gherardi. I shall expect you to act 
for me. I suppose you will do me the favor ?” 

As Gherardi owed the fellow a large sum of money, he 
could not easily refuse. Indeed, whatever reports might 
be in circulation against the Greek, his hold on respectabil- 
ity was strong enough to give him a right to demand from 
any acquaintance the service which the present exigency 
required. 

The two passed out ; the others gathered about Aylmer. 
There was very little to be said. Pandolfini gave a rapid 
explanation : Sabakine took Aylmer’s hand, saying : 

I am your oldest friend here. You will not refuse me 
a friend’s privilege ?” 

‘^I thank you,” Aylmer answered ; then turned towards 
the host. “ I am very sorry any trouble should have hap- 
pened here. Stanhope. I’ll bid you good-night.” 

“You need not be in the least sorry,” returned the 
other, bluntly. “ I hope you broke the rascal’s jaw ! As 
for going away, what’s the use? Just stop till matters are 
arranged.” 


STILL HEM WORK. 


359 


They shook hands ; then Sabakine drew Aylmer aside. 

The fellow will not eat his lie,” he said. “To do him 
justice, he is no coward ; you must meet him.” 

“ The sooner the better,” returned Laurence ; “ to-mor- 
row, if possible.” 

Gherardi appeared in the doorway ; Sabakine stepped 
forward, and said with grave courtesy : 

“ Mr. Aylmer has empowered me to act for him ; I am 
quite at your service, monsieur.” 

As the door closed behind them, Laurence began speak- 
ing of some indifferent matter, and the two gentlemen 
seconded him, though they were much less calm than he. 

The conference in the adjoining room only lasted a 
short time ; Gherardi came back, and Sabakine beckoned 
Aylmer out. 

“ It is all settled,” he said, “ to-morrow morning at sun- 
rise in the Cascine. As I expected, the rascal would not 
hear of making an apology. Now let us bid these fellows 
good-night ; you will be glad to get away, and so shall I.” 

Hurried words had been exchanged between the trio, 
and the result of them was this speech from Stanhope 
when the two gentlemen returned. 

“ Aylmer,” he said, “ we wish to assure you that from 
neither of us will the cause of this difficulty be known.” 

“Let me add,” said Gherardi, “that before Signor 
Dimetri went away, it was distinctly understood that I 
only agreed to act for him on condition that he gave me 
his word to be equally reticent.” 

“I owe you all my best thanks,” returned Aylmer, 
made' his adieus, and departed, accompanied by the Rus- 
sian. 

“I suppose it won’t be long first ” began Pandolfini, 

but Stanhope checked him. 

“ Gherardi would not tell, and we do not want to 
know,” he said. “ Aylmer is a capital swordsman ; I only 
hope he will kill the fellow.” 

“ H’m !” said Pandolfini, recalling various stories he 
had heard of the Greek’s dueling prowess ; every one of 
the histories credited him with having killed his man. 

The Russian and Aylmer drove to the latter’s lodgings ; 
and Sabakine went in with him, and remained for half an 
hour. 

“ I’d stop longer if you wanted me,” he said, “but I 


360 


STILL HER WORK. 


can see you would rather be alone.” He was pale and agi- 
tated, in spite of his attempt to appear composed. Aylmer 
had a singular faculty of winning the warm regard of 
those with whom he came much in contact, and he and the 
Russian had grown quite intimate. “ It is of no use to 
tell you how sorry I am,” continued Sabakine, rapidly ; 

but it will all end well : not only are you a skillful fencer, 
but if there is any justice, a cause like yours must be suc- 
cessful.” 

When Aylmer was left alone he sat down at his writ- 
ing-table : up to this moment he had literally felt nothing 
after the spasm of wrath which passed with the blow he 
had dealt the Greek upon his lying mouth. 

Something told him now that for him the end of earthly 
things was at hand. No man could be less inclined to 
superstitious fancies, but this presentiment fastened itself 
upon his soul as firmly as if some supernatural power had 
taken visible shape and uttered it. Yet the certainty 
caused him no excitement ; he wondered a little at his own 
dull calmness, as he might have done at that of a stranger. 
An uncontrollable longing to see Violet Cameron arose in 
his mind. Who could tell if the whole sweep of eternity 
would ever bring her within his reach after this night ! He 
must see her ; then he needed only to write the letters he 
desired to leave behind him, and all he had to do would be 
accomplished. He looked at his watch ; it was still early 
enough to go to Lady Harcourt’s. He should find her 
there ; he could not die till he had gazed once more in the 
face of the woman whom he loved with an affection so 
deep that he knew even in the life beyond this it must re- 
main the ruling power of his soul. 

He paused before the glass, and adjusted his hair and 
dress ; through the wild impatience which fired his veins, 
came the thought, how strange it seemed that he should 
never stand there again ! He wondered anew at his own 
inability to care ; then recollected that he was losing 
precious instants ; she might be gone before he reached the 
house. He caught up his hat and outer coat, and rushed 
down the stairs, startling himself by the audible repetition 
of her name. 


WOB WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 


861 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 

HE old professor’s appearance with Miss Cam- 
eron created quite a sensation among the group 
seated in Lady Harcourt’s salon, 

“ I am so glad to see you, Violet,” cried the 
hostess. “ Ursa Major, as I live ! There is 
nobody who can bore us. I was determined to have a 
pleasant evening for once in my life. And how nice of 
you to have persuaded the Great Bear to come ! Profes- 
sor, I am delighted — overpowered — don’t know how to ex- 
press my gratitude !” 

I suppose a new species of beast is always a welcome 
addition to a menagerie,” retorted the professor, and 
kissed her hand as gallantly as if he had been an old beau, 

“ This really is too much !” laughed she. I shall ex- 
pect a tender declaration presently.” 

“ The megalosaurus subjugated,” said the professor. 

Violet left them to talk nonsense, and passed on to 
greet her friends — Nina and Carlo among them. 

‘‘We only got back just in time for dinner, else I 
should have gone to your house,” said the former. 

“ What has happened to you ?” asked Violet. “ You 
look as radiant as if you had just returned from a honey- 
moon trip !” 

“ ni tell you presently,” whispered Nina, and as soon as 
she could get her friend to herself for a few minutes, she 
unfolded her good news. “ Carlo has promised to play 
cards only once more for six months — so he will go to 
Giulia da Rimini’s next evening, but that will be the last 
time.” 

“ I am so very, very glad !” returned Violet. 

“And fancy Giulia’s rage when she hears ” 

“ Madame la Duchesse da Rimini,” announced the 
French major-domo before Nina could finish, and she felt 
Violet’s fingers close over her arm with a j)ressure which 
fairly hurt. She looked up in surprise. Miss Cameron had 
turned very pale, and her eyes were black with excitement. 
They were standing near enough to hear what the new- 

IG 




3t53 


FOB WHOM RE WAS TO DIE. 


comer said, as the hostess moved forward to greet her, with 
a surprise in her face which she took no pains to hide. 

My dear Lady Harcourt, I expected to find you alone 
— had no idea you meant to receive to-night — and I have 
just had news from Paris that I knew you would be glad 
to hear,” the duchess was saying, her usual slow grace not 
in the slightest degree disturbed. 

‘‘ You are certain of always being la Men venue in my 
house,” returned her ladyship, ‘^and you shall tell me the 
news later.” 

The duchess spoke to the people close by — caught sight 
of Violet and Nina, and approached them with stately 
ease. 

‘‘ My darling Nina, what an unexpected pleasure !” 
she said, holding out her hand. Miss Cameron, I am 
delighted !” 

S^he was about to extend the same greeting she had 
bestowed upon the marchesa, but, apparently unconscious 
of her intention, Violet bowed, and said : 

‘‘ Madame la duchesse !” 

She said only that ; and though her lips wore a smile, 
there was an undisguised expression of scorn and menace 
in her eyes which sent a thrill through the Sicilian’s nerves, 
strong as they were. 

At this instant Lady Harcourt hastened up. 

“ My dear Violet, you promised me a song,” she said ; 
“ I shall not let you off. I mean to accompany you myself 
— if you are not grateful you are less than human.” 

‘‘ I am quite at your service,” returned Violet. 

As they walked away. Lady Harcourt whispered : “ It is 
too bad I I did not think even her assurance was equal to 
coming here to-night.” 

‘‘We have no one but ourselves to blame for the 
manner in which she ventures to treat us all,” Violet 
answered. 

“ Oh, I am ready to follow suit if anybody will take the 
initiative,” said Lady Harcourt. 

“ Only wait !” responded Violet, thinking of Carlo’s 
promise to his wife — if he broke it, so much the worse. 
Even for Nina’s sake she would keep no further terms with 
the duchess. Since the woman had forced herself on Lady 
Harcourt to-night. Carlo would have his opportunity, then 
he could find no excuse for going near Giulia. 


FOR WHOM HE WA8 TO DIE. 


363 


“ I am sorry, because I can’t keep her and Carlo from 
high play, as you manage to do in your house,” continued 
Lady Harcourt, ‘‘ and I know how it distresses you and 
Nina.” 

This evening, you need not be troubled on her account 
or mine,” said Violet ; ‘‘ let them both alone.” 

‘‘You will tell me your reason sometime? I am sure you 
mean mischief, and I am glad ! If anybody can prove 
more than a match for Giulia, it will be you — but take 
care !” 

A knot of men came up ; Violet could only respond to 
the warning by a smile, but it was so bitter that Lady Har- 
court fell to wondering what it meant. 

“I have done more than my duty,” Miss Cameron said, 
as she finished her second song and was besieged for 
another. “ Lady Harcourt, you must play the harp for us 
— it was only on that condition I agreed to sing.” 

“And I am ready to show myself a woman of my 
word,” replied her ladyship, gayly. 

The last air Violet sang had been a favorite melody 
of Laurence Aylmer’s. When Nina chose it, her first 
impulse was to refuse ; then she felt indignant to find 
that anything associated with the man could move her. 

After Lady Harcourt had played, two people seated 
themselves at the piano to perform a duet. Violet left 
the music-room ; a suffocating sensation had oppressed her 
ever since she ended her song ; she wanted a breath of air, 
a few moments of solitude. 

Lady Harcourt inhabited a villa in one of the modern 
quarters of the town. The ground-floor was occupied by a 
library, dining-room, a snuggery in which she usually spent 
her mornings, and attached thereto a large studio, for 
among her numerous talents and accomplishments she pos- 
sessed no mean artistic ability. 

As Miss Cameron reached the entrance-hall, the outer 
bell rang — '.he servant ushered some person in. She hurried 
on to escape companionship, crossed the library and gained 
the snuggery beyond, lighted only by candles placed so as 
to display a new painting to advantage ; the rest of the 
chamber lay in a soft gloom, very grateful to her tired eyes. 

She sat down in an arm-chair, forgetting already the 
purpose which had brought her thither. 

The heavy Persian curtains of the door rustled softly 


364 


FOR WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 


and were flung back. Violet glanced in that direction, and 
saw Laurence Aylmer. 

She had believed that he would not come to-night ; of 
course they must unavoidably meet, but she persuaded her- 
self that a little time would elapse before he gained audacity 
enough to accept invitations to houses where he ran the 
risk of encountering her. 

As soon as she perceived the intruder, she turned away 
and appeared absorbed in contemplation of the picture. 
She heard him cross the room — knew that he was standing 
beside her — but she did not stir or take the slightest notice. 

“ Miss Cameron !” he said, after a brief silence. ‘‘ Miss 
Cameron !” 

She looked round now, regarding him with icy surprise, 
as she might have done a stranger who ventured to address 
her under circumstances which rendered the act an imperti- 
nence. 

“I saw you come in — I followed you,” he continued, in 
a slow, difficult voice. 

The surprise in her face deepened, her lips moved — • 
seemed to repeat his words in wonder at his presumption — 
but emitted no sound. 

“An hour ago I did not think anything would induce 
me to enter your presence,” he said, “ but I — I ” 

He paused, and rested his hand heavily on a table which 
stood near her chair. He was deathly pale, she could see ; 
his eyes were hollow and ringed by dark circles which made 
them appear unnaturally large. But the recollection of the 
man’s utter falsity checked Violet’s quick impulse of sym- 
pathy, and the thought that he hoped still to deceive her 
increased the anger roused by her own weakness. 

“ I could not keep away,” he went on ; “it was stronger 
than my will — that impulse — so I came.” 

She would Avaste neither resentment nor scorn ; he 
deserved nothing but utter indifference, and should receive 
his lesson. 

“ Mr. Aylmer,” she said, “ when we meet in the society 
of mutual acquaintances I may recognize you in order to 
avoid remark ; under other circumstances we remain stran- 
gers. You will, of course, be courteous enough never to 
force me to repeat this declaration.” 

“ You will have no necessity,” he answered, his lips 
quivering with a troubled smile. 


FOR WHOM HE WA8 TO DIE. 


865 


She slightly bowed her head ; the movement was not 
only an acquiescence but a gesture of dismissal, and again 
her eyes went back to the picture. 

After a pause he spoke again: 

“ Since I promise you that ” 

Promises are uncalled-for between strangers,” she 
interrupted ; and now she waved her hand towards the 
door. 

Pie did not move. 

She waited for a few seconds — her hand still extended 
— ^but he kept his position. Then she rose without deigning 
him a second glance. 

‘‘ Don’u go !” he exclaimed. 

She walked on — he stepped quickly before her, repeat- 
ing : 

‘‘ Don’t go !” 

“ I will not, if your leaving me prevents the necessity,” 
she answered. 

“ In a few moments. Give me a little time,” he said. 

Again she attempted to pass ; he put out his arm ; he 
was so close that he would have touched her if she had not 
retreated a step. Such disdainful haughtiness suddenly 
steeled her face, that a person seeing it for the first time 
would not have believed the countenance could ever wear a 
gentle expression. 

Not even the outward courtesy of a conventional gen- 
tleman,” she said slowly; ‘^ah, well! I need not be sur- 
prised.” 

“ You must let me speak,” he hurried on, regardless of 
her contempt. “Yes, I think I am desperate enough to 
stop you, if you refuse.” 

Violet returned to her chair and sat down. 

“ Since to call for assistance would be absurd, I must 
admit myself a prisoner,” she said. 

“ It is only this ! I have not come to ask your pardon 
— to explain. The friendship which will not stand any and 
ever}^ test is not worth possessing.” 

A painful constriction in his throat made him pause ; 
Violet sat stone-deaf to his voice, blind to his presence — 
her eyes fixed on the picture, her features as unchangeable 
as if they had frozen with that intolerable scorn upon 
them. 

“ You are too proud !” he cried, with an indescribable 


366 


FOB WHOM HE WAS TO DIE, 


peevish pathos in his tone. “Take care — God punishes 
pride ! Remember what I say, for we shall never meet 
again !” 

Never again — and he must go into the next world and 
take with him the recollection of her face as it looked now ! 
Oh, if he could only find means to soften it for an instant 
—just one ! 

“ Violet ! Violet !” he called, in an uncontrollable 
paroxysm of agony that thrilled her very soul. 

“ What do you want ?” she asked, forced to look at 
him, forced to speak, in spite of her will. 

She could hear her voice tremble, knew that her face 
had lost its mask, but for a moment she could not resist his 
sway. 

“ Ah !” he cried, in a tone of wild exultation, “ at least 
I shall carry this memory with me — at least this ! Only a 
minute more, then you may go — it is forever, forever ! 
Remember always that in thought, word, and deed, I have 
been true to the deity I set up in my soul — remember ! I 
loved you — I shall love you still — death itself could not 
alter that !” 

Violet uttered a little gasping cry — put out her hands 
as if a positive physical insult had been offered her — tried 
to rise, but sank back so sick and faint with anger and dis- 
gust that she was powerless. 

“You know it,” he continued. “However much you 
loathe me now, you know it — you will remember — remem- 
ber it more and more !” 

“ Is the play ended ?” she asked, finding voice at length. 
“ Oh, I thank you after all — I did not dream when you 
stopped me here in that ruffianly fashion that I should have 
cause — but I thank you. I might have grieved somewhat 
for the man I had believed you — for the friend I had lost. 
I might have tried perhaps to make for you the excuses 
that many women hold good where men are concerned ; 
you have destroyed the possibility — you have shown me 
you are so vile, there is no room for regret. I thank you.” 

“1 love you,” he repeated. 

The repetition of the words which seemed so terrible 
an outrage, roused her to wrath such as she had never felt 
in her whole life. 

“ Oh, now I understand everything !” she exclaimed. 
“And you really fancied me weak enough even yet to be 


FOB WHOM HE WAS TO DIE. 


367 


deceived by your arts ? Trust me, sir, you have failed in 
every way. Do not flatter yourself that the girlish heart 
you tried, two nights ago, to fill with the story of your 
affection, hoping thus to close her lips, was touched : my 
cousin despises you as heartily as a pure creature can a man 
like you.” 

Your cousin !” he echoed. 

“ Oh, if you needed money so sorely, I’d have given 
you half my fortune, if you had only invented some reason 
for wanting it, rather than bear the shame of remembering 
that I ever called so base a pretender my friend !” 

He stood perfectly impassive under her fiery tirade, his 
eyes, so full of yearning anguish, fastened upon her. 

‘‘I never thought of that,” he said slowly. ‘‘Surely I 
might have supposed other people would recollect your 
money ; I did not ; I wouldn’t have believed you could 
even now. No, no ; I had no need of it — less than ever 
now. I am rich again ; but it is all no matter.” 

“ None,” she said, “ none ! Is my imprisonment ended 
— can I go without risk of new insolence ?” 

“ I said the whole in saying I love you,” he answered, 
moving aside. “ God bless you, Violet ! remember they 
were my last words. God bless you — farewell !” 

She was gone. He stood still for a few seconds, trying to 
catch the echo of her tread ; then he turned towards the 
chair in which she had sat — stooped and kissed the carved 
arms over which her hands had clenched themselves, warm 
still from that nervous pressure. 

“ The woman I am going to die for,” he said half aloud ; 
“surely I have a right to love her. If she should ever 
learn the truth and be sorry, I wonder if they would let 
me come back and tell her not to grieve — I wonder.” 

Once more he kissed the polished wood, and left the 
room in his turn. The servants had deserted the entrance- 
hall. He found his ^t and coat, opened the door, and 
passed out into the night. 


868 


ONCE TOO OFTEN. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

OlSrCE TOO OFTEN. 

lOLET dared not immediately return to the oom 
pany ; she must have a few moments to subdue 
the excitement which shook her, body and 
mind, caused by so many varying emotions 
that she could not have told what feeling was 

uppermost. 

She ascended the stairs and passed through the ante- 
chamber where the ladies had left their wraps — empty 
now, luckily. She walked to and fro — paused before a 
vase of flowers, and began counting the roses — the silk 
balls that decorated the table-fringe — trying to concentrate 
her faculties upon some trivial employment, till the pulses 
which beat like tiny hammers in either temple should relax 
their force enough to let her see and hear clearly, for the 
physical sensation was as if a sudden blow had first 
stunned, and then fevered her brain. 

At length she heard a step. The thought of being seen 
nerved her. She turned to the door — met Lady Harcourt’s 
maid — stopped to ask the woman kindly if she were en- 
tirely recovered from an illness she had had — glanced at 
herself in a mirror, and went on, satisfied that beyond an 
unusual pallor and an odd, strained look in her eyes, there 
was nothing peculiar in her appearance, and the people 
would all be too full of themselves to notice such slight 
signs of agitation. 

From the farther salon still came the sounds of the 
piano. Violet wanted no more music, and walked in the 
opposite direction — found herself surrounded by a knot of 
gentlemen — talked — was talked to — all the while feeling as 
if she were in a dream — a dream which held vague horrors 
that chilled her blood. Somebody said something about 
play going on in the card-room ; she heard herself saying 
she wanted to watch the game. Somebody offered his arm 
— she took it, and was led away. 

A party of whist-pla3^ers occupied one of the tables ; 
farther on, she saw the duchess and Carlo absorbed in 
ecarte ; near them. Lady Harcourt and Nina, with a knot 



ONQE TOO OFTEN. 


369 


of men hovering about. The hostess called Violet, and 
made her sit on the sofa between the marchesa and herself. 

That mercurial personage was in her most brilliant 
mood, pouring out bon mots, relating amusing anecdotes, 
and generally riveting attention upon herself, so that Nina 
had an opportunity to whisper to Violet : 

‘‘Do you see Giulia? I never saw her look so utterly 
fiendish as she does to-night, and she has been so sweet and 
insolent to me — oh, I wish the game was over !” 

“ Patience !” returned Violet. “ It is the last time.” 

She had a sudden odd sensation as she spoke that her 
words meant more than she herself comprehended — knew 
that she must have uttered them oddly too, for Nina was 
quite staring at her with wide-open eyes. 

“ What do you mean ?” the marchesa asked. 

“Since Carlo promised you not to play after this eve- 
ning for six whole months,” said Violet. 

“Oh !” exclaimed Nina, in a disappointed tone. “You 
said it in such a strange way — I hoped I don’t know what 
— goose that I am !” 

And now Violet found a plan which rendered the words 
she had spoken significant enough. This should be the 
last time that the duchess tempted Carlo through his 
peculiar weakness. If there was no other way to prevent 
it, she would tell the woman in plain language that the 
secret shared by herself and cousin would only remain a 
secret on those conditions. She could frighten the crea- 
ture. She, Violet Cameron, was a power in the social 
world which even Giulia would not venture to defy. What 
an idiot not to have thought of this before ! At least some 
good might come out of that miserable man’s treachery — 
good to her friend, whoever else suffered. 

“ Aren’t you well ? I think you are pale, or is it this 
light ?” Nina was saying. 

“ It is your fancy,” returned Violet. 

“ I am tired — I wish I was at home !” continued Nina. 
“ I wonder why Laurence Aylmer is not here. You have 
seen him, of course, since I went away?” 

Lady Harcourt relieved Violet from the necessity of 
replying. 

“Nina, stop whispering in Violet Cameron’s pretty ear 
and listen to my story !” she cried. “ It is a new tale, 
16 ^ 


370 


ONCE TOO OFTEN. 


and I want to rehearse it to a small and discriminating 
audience.” 

They were all still laughing at the absurd history, when 
the duchess flung down her cards, and said aloud : 

What amuses you so much over yonder ? If you held 
such hands as mine, you would not laugh so heartily.” 

‘‘ Not in vein to-night, Giulia ?” asked Lady Harcourt. 

‘‘No,” replied the duchess, rising as she spoke. “The 
niarchese and I want to play baccarat : ecarte is too stupid 
— too — what is that expressive English word. Miss Cam- 
eron ? — ah, 5^010.” 

“ The very word,” replied Violet.. 

“ What wonderful progress you are making in our 
harsh tongue !” laughed Lady Harcourt. 

“ Ah, when one has a good teacher !” said Carlo. 

“ Go you, raarchese, and bring some Christian souls who 
appreciate baccarat^ and leave me and my teachers alone,” 
retorted the duchess, with a sneer. 

“ Wouldn’t disturb you for the world — not even when 
you put them in the plural,” said Carlo. Baccarat, eh? 
Well, since this is my last chance for six months, I may as 
well take advantage of it.” 

“ What do you mean ?” she asked. 

“ I am not to touch a card for six whole months,” said 
Carlo. 

Everybody laughed except Nina and Violet, but Magno- 
letti persisted, till all perceived that he was in earnest. 

“ Whom did you promise ?” asked the duchess, as the 
chorus of wondering ejaculations ceased. 

“ I swore it on my guardian angel’s crucifix,” replied 
Carlo, gayly. 

“ Upon my word. Miss Cameron, we may well call you 
the all-powerful !” cried the duchess. 

Violet did not heed the speech, so no one would have 
ventured to notice it, only Carlo knew that it would enrage 
the duchess more to discover he had yielded to his own 
wife’s influence than to that of Miss Cameron. 

“The crucifix happened to be Russian,” said he, and as 
he spoke he playfully raised Nina’s hand to his lips. 

The duchess laughed in reply, and turned to take her 
fan from the table, but Violet caught sight of her face — its 
expression of malignity was positively startling — and Miss 
Cameron exulted anew over the power which she possessed 


ONCE TOO OFTEN. 


871 


to counteract the plots she felt assured the woman already 
meditated. 

The duchess looked round with her sweetest smile, and 
said : 

‘‘It would be a pity to endanger your wise resolves. 
Carlo — there shall be no baccarat ! Let us rest a little, and 
go back to kcart'c : I believe I shall follow your good exam- 
ple so far as to abjure all other games.” 

“ To think of my brightening into a shining light to 
guide people into safe paths !” cried Carlo. 

“This is a world of surprises,” returned the duchess, 
glancing at Miss Cameron with an expression lost upon 
that lady, though the marchese perfectly understood its 
meaning, and he inwardly vowed to tell Nina, before he 
slept, of the malicious hints Giulia had several times 
thrown out in regard to himself and their friend. 

Her last chance — this had been the duchess’s thought 
when Carlo announced his determination to give up cards — 
she would make good use of it ! Oh, if Dimetri were 
only there ! There might be danger for her in attempting 
to cheat at baccarat unaided, but at ecarte she could do it 
with impunity in case fortune favored Magnoletti : before 
they rose from the table the thousands which remained 
from Carlo’s late inheritance should change hands ! 

Giulia and Carlo stood watching the whist-players ; the 
others joined the people in the outer salons — Violet pausing 
to whisper some hopeful assurance in Nina’s ear as they 
went. 

“ Am I expected to wait for you, Fraulein ?” asked the 
professor, stalking up to Miss Cameron. 

“ Of course you are,” said Lady Harcourt, who over- 
heard the question, “ and she is not going for these two 
hours ! You dreadful man, you drove us out of the music- 
room by persuading Madame de Hatsfeldt to play that ter- 
rible Wagner music ! But you cannot escape ; come and 
tell me all sorts of wise things, so that I can repeat them 
later as original, and get a reputation for learning on easy 
terras.” 

Violet would gladly have gone home, but she knew that 
her hostess would not permit her to leave, and besides, 
weary as she was, something impelled her to remain, and 
she could not resist the conviction that before the evening 
ended she should learn the reason — find it a potent one too. 


872 


ONCE TOO OFTEN 


Pi’esently, other men were announced — Sabakine and 
Gherardi amongst them. Nearly another hour passed, 
then the supper-room was thrown open. 

Sabakine,’’ said Lady Harcourt, play inaitre d'ho^ely 
and go warn those people in the other room that eatables 
and champagne are to be had if they choose to leave their 
cards.” 

When he came back, Lady Harcourt and Violet were 
still in the salon, detained by a diatribe of the professor’s 
against the madness of human creatures exasperating their 
interiors by eating trash at that hour of the night. 

“None of them can think of their stomachs,” said 
Sabakine. “ Gherardi has persuaded the whist-players to 
change to poker ! The duchess wants a lemonade.” Then 
he added in Violet’s ear: “Carlo is losing fearfully ! Dear 
Miss Cameron — perhaps I ought not to say it — but try to 
stop his playing so much with the duchess. If she were a 
man I would tell you the reason.” ^ 

Violet knew that he shared her suspicions, but nothing 
could be done at jDiesent ; she took his arm and followed 
Lady Harcourt, who was not only forcing the j)rofesGor 
into the supper-room, but threatening to make him devour 
both game and sweets as a punishment for his lecture. 

Violet could not eat ; her throat felt parched and burn- 
ing, and she took an ice in order to obtain momentary 
relief. 

“ I will have no standing about — no nibbling,” Lady 
Harcourt announced ; “ you are all to sit down at a table 
like Christians, and not only eat, but be as witty as if we 
were back in the days of the gay, delightful Philippe, 
instead of this dull nineteenth century.” 

It seemed to Violet that the party would never break 
up ; she could endure it no longer ; she must go back to 
the card-room — she must ! 

“ Do come,” she whispered at last to the professor, who 
was seated beside her. 

“ Where are you going?’ called Lady Harcourt. “I’ll 
not have you ruin a pleasant hour, Violet.” 

“ I’ll come back,” she replied ; “my head aches. The 
professor is too devoted to you — I am jealous, and must 
have him to myself for a few minutes.” 

The savant gave her his arm, and they strayed into 
the empty salon beyond. 


ONCE TOO OFTEK 


373 


‘^Wliat ails you, Fraulein ?” he asked. ‘‘I knew at 
dinner tliat something was wrong.” 

am anxious about the marchese,” she answered. 
‘‘Professor, that woman’s look haunts me;” and she told 
rapidly of Carlo’s promise to abstain from cards. “ If she 
could ruin him she would — she is desperate.” 

“ You can’t do any good,” returned the professor ; “the 
marchese is crazy when he gets those devil’s pictures in his 
hands.” 

“I believe she cheats ; I believe the whispers are 
true ” 

“ Never take the trouble to believe anything which you 
cannot prove,” interrupted the professor calmly. “My 
dear, it is distracting to think of the variety of reptiles 
and wild beasts the life-principle in that woman must have 
passed through before it entered her present shape.” 

“Come with me,” pleaded Violet. “Perhaps I can 
give him a warning ; sometimes he will pay attention to 
wliat I say.” 

The professor shrugged his broad shoulders. “ If this 
is Carlo’s last chance for six months, warnings will be thrown 
away,” oaid he ; “ but come, Fmulein, and don’t look so mis- 
erable.” 

“And watch her — do !” urged Violet. “Tour eyes are 
as quick as those of a lynx ; who knows ” 

In her impatience she hurried him forward without 
waiting to finish her sentence. The professor paused in 
the dooway, and let her pass. 

The table at which the four men sat was at the farther 
end of the room ; the players too deeply engi’ossed to no- 
tice anything that went on about them. Carlo and the 
duchess were seated so that the professor could look 
directly into the lady’s hand ; her back towards him. She 
was shuffling the cards — relating some anecdote while thus 
employed ; Carlo laughing at her words. He w^as pale, but 
scarcely more so than usual ; a few tiny beads of perspira- 
tion Avliich broke out on his forehead afresh each time that 
he wiped them away, alone betrayed his keen excitement. 

Violet passed round the table and leaned over him. 
“ "What luck ?” she whispered, 

“ Not precisely brilliant,” he i*eplied carelessly, “ but 
perhaps it will change.” 

The duchess looked up ; Miss Cameron was regarding 


874 


ONCE TOO OFTEN, 


her fixedly, hat though tlie woman perfectly understood 
the meaning in her glance, she returned it with a scorn- 
fully indifiPerent smile. 

So 1” said Violet, half aloud, and made a rapid sign 
^dth her fan, first towards her own head, then towards 
Carlo^ shoulder. Giulia attempted to look defiant, but her 
gaze wavered ; she shut her mouth hard to hide a sudden 
quiver of the lips. 

‘‘ Did you speak, belle Violette ?” asked Carlo. 

“ The other night at my house,” began Violet softly, 
her eyes still fastened on the woman, ‘Hhe other 
night ” 

“Marchese, suppose we stop,” broke in the duchess, 
quickly. ‘‘ Ah, pardon, I interrupted Miss Cameron !” 

“ Well, the other night ?” questioned Carlo. 

“You were less unlucky,” said Violet. 

“No high play permitted,” rejoined be, laughing. “ Did 
you say stop, duchess ? Heavens, what an idea ! This is 
my last dissipation for six months, remember !” 

The duchess gave Violet a quick glance, which said as 
plainly as words could have done : “ I am not to blame,” 

and began dealing the cards. “You would go on playing 
if I retired. Carlo, so I may as well take my chances,” she 
observed presently. 

Violet turned away ; as she did so she saw the duchess’s 
eyes follow her — that awful glare was in their depths 
again ; her lips wreathed with the malignant smile which 
had startled Violet once before. For the moment. Miss 
Cameron could do no more — the woman had won the right 
to a truce. Violet sat down at some distance from the 
table ; the professor kept his stand. The game continued; 
Carlo’s losses were terrible. The duchess was dealing 
again ; her brain working busily. If she could put Mag- 
noletti so much in her debt that, added to his previous 
losses at her house, the present disaster would cramp him 
in a desperate manner, she could buy Violet’s silence by 
proposing easy terms of payment to Carlo. Not only a 
hold gained on Miss Cameron, but the money — the money 
which she loved in the very depths of her soul, where the 
instincts of a usurer and a spendthrift fought incessantly 
for supremacy. 

“ I am tired, marchese,” she said. “ Wliat say you— 
double or quits ?” 


ONCE TOO OFTEN. 


375 


Carlo snatched at the chance with the recklessness of 
the true gambler. 

As you like,” he answered. 

Whatever else he might know her capable of, Magno- 
letti had never suspected her of cheating ; while she dealt, 
he turned his head and addressed some trivial remark to 
Miss Cameron. 

With an expertness worthy a conjurer, the duchess 
slipped a king from the bottom of the pack instead of 
throwing down the top card. Victory in every way ; not 
only Carlo’s money won, but Violet Cameron conquered a 
second time — victory ! 

Quick as her movement was, before she could play the 
king, a grip of iron seized her two hands just across the 
knuckles, and shut them so tight that she could not drop 
the evidence of her guilt — could not stir a finger. 

Discovered — ruined ! 

The terrible consequences flashed upon the woman and 
paralyzed body and mind. She groaned aloud. Carlo 
looked back and uttered an exclamation of horror. The 
men at the other table started from their seats and hurried 
forward. The professor cried : 

‘‘ Look for yourselves, gentlemen. The trick has been 
neatly done.” 

He lifted the duchess’s hands so that the spectators 
could see all the cards — the position of the tell-tale thumb 
and finger. Nobody spoke — the whole group was abso- 
lutely struck dumb. Then the professor’s guttural voice 
broke the silence : 

“Perhaps you do not punish lady sharpers publicly, but 
at least I suppose you decline to play with them.” 

Violet sat motionless — her first thought one of rejoicing 
that Carlo was saved ; then she caught sight of the crimi- 
nal’s white face, and a shudder of pity mingled with her 
fright and disgust. 

The professor held the woman fast ; she did not 
attempt to struggle ; her black eyes wandered slowly about 
the circle, then settled on Violet Cameron, and a fierce, im- 
potent wrath mingled with the terror that glazed their 
fires. 

At the instant, Lady Harcourt and Nina appeared on 
the threshold. Nina was looking back over her shoulder 
at Sabakine: her merry laugh rang out, sending a cold 


376 


ONCE TOO OFTEN. 


thrill through the listeners — died abruptly on her lips as a 
low ejaculation from her companion caused her to turn her 
head. 

Lady Harcourt mechanically stepped forward, drawing 
the mu,rchesa with her. Sabakine followed, closing the 
door behind him. He had taken in the full significance of 
the scene at a glance. 

“ At last,” he said calmly. 

At last,” echoed the professor. ‘^She cheated you out 
of ten thousand francs about a month since, Sabakine.” 

I thought no one knew it, so I held my peace,” returned 
the Russian ; “ but I was sure this must happen sooner or 
later.” 

I saw the trick the night she tried i£ with you,” re- 
joined the professor. “ I was not quick enough then to 
catcli her ; we have been more successful this time — every- 
body has seen.” 

He dropped the woman’s hands — the cards rustled 
slowly to the floor. She cowered down in her chair, sat 
quiet for a moment, then struggled to her feet. They could 
hear her panting breath ; her lips were drawn back spas- 
modically, showing the white teeth ; her eyes again wan- 
dered about the group. 

What do you mean to do ?” she hissed ; and her gaze 
once more settled on Violet. “ That Cameron woman is 
satisfied now. Well, what do you mean to do?” 

“I am sure that I can speak for everybody here — no one 
will tell !” cried Carlo. 

‘^Provided the duchess promises to leave Florence for 
two years,” added Sabakine, in his most indifferent tones. 

The other men did not speak. They were all Italians, 
and had often suffered from what they had considered 
Giulia’s wonderful luck ; to know that their losses had no 
doubt been caused by trickery, filled them with anger too 
hot for any merciful recollection of her sex to soften their 
judgment. 

The duchess uttered an inarticulate cry of rage — started 
forward — made a step towards Violet. Her arms were 
stretched out ; her face so perfectly demoniac that Nina 
shrieked. Sabakine moved in front of the woman ; the 
professor’s hand fell heavily upon her shoulder. 

The duchess’s frenzied eyes roved from Violet to Carlo ; 


ONCE TOO OFTEN, 


877 


she laughed aloud. At least she could deal one final blow, 
defeated, disgraced as she was. 

She began to utter the vile slander which the Greek had 
spoken, but the professor stopped her at the first words, 
which reached no ears save his and Sabakine’s. 

If you finish, madame,” he exclaimed, “ I will expose 
you myself in the morning papers.” 

‘‘ Good God, professor !” cried Carlo. 

“ Hush !” said Sabakine, sternly. “ If the professor did 
not, I would ; mercy is wasted here.” 

The duchess’s fingers tore like claws at the lace upon 
her dress, but she remained silent. 

Lady Harcourt had by this time recovered her presence 
of mind. She crossed the salon and opened a door hidden 
in the oak wainscoting. 

That passage leads directly to the dressing-room,” she 
said. ‘‘ Madame da Rimini can leave my house without 
encountering those guests who have not witnessed this 
scene.” 

The woman turned, shook her clenched hand at Violet 
Cameron, uttered another inarticulate cry like the snarl of 
a wild animal, and fled, closing the door behind her. 

She gained the dressing-room, found her wraps, and 
hurried down stairs. Her carriage drove up, and as she 
was entering it a hand touched hers. 

Permit me, duchess !” said Dimetri, softly. I was 
waiting till you came out ; I had something to tell you !” 

What ?” she demanded, turning fiercely on him. 

‘^Do you remember what you said to-day? Well, to- 
morrow morning at daylight !” 

She grasped his arm with both hands, and began to 
laugh. 

“ Get into the carriage,” she whispered, as soon as she 
could check that terrible paroxysm of laughter. Tell me 
about it ! You are sure to kill him — sure ?” 

‘‘ I was Lachasse’s favorite pupil,” he answered, with a 
smile. 


378 


THE 8T011Y TOLD. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE STOEY TOLD. 

R a few instants after the door closed behind 
the woman, nobody among the group stirred or 
spoke. Nina had caught her husband’s hand 
and held it fast ; Lady Harcourt leaned on 
Violet’s shoulder to support herself ; the men 
stood like statues of astonishment, with the exception of 
Sabakine and the professor ; the Russian was calmly 
adjusting a flower in his button-hole, and the savant 
regarding the party with a smile worthy a Sphinx. 

“ Professor,” said Sabakine, breaking the silence with 
his cold, polished voice, “ they all seem turned to stone ; 
can’t you perform some sort of incantation that will restore 
their vitality ?” 

The professor pointed a long, bony figure at the table 
strewn with cards, and replied sententiously : 

They have banished the devil, but they’ll not give 
up his works.” 

Everybody started, and a chorus of ejaculations rose. 

Violet sat down on the sofa near, and Nina hurried up, 
drawing Carlo with her. 

‘‘ And only last week she took a cool three thousand 
out of my pocket at piquet !” exclaimed Gherardi. “ Carlo 
mio, set up a statue of Fortune at once in your oratory, and 
let it wear the professor’s face.” 

I should make a beautiful goddess, but it would be a 
pity to leave out ray legs,” quoth the savant. 

Lady Harcourt laughed hysterically. 

‘‘ I could forgive Giulia her dishonesty,” said she, but 
I can’t pardon her bad taste in choosing ray house to dis- 
play it.” 

And we always talked about her wonderful luck,” 
cried Gherardi. “ By heavens, we ought to publish her in 
every newspaper in Italy !” and all his compatriots, with 
the exception of Magnoletti, echoed his angry threat. 

“ Oh no, no !” exclaimed Violet. Keep her secret — 
she will go away at once ! Nina — Lady Harcourt — make 
them promise not to tell.” 



THE 8T0RT TOLD, 


379 


Of course they’ll not tell — we shan’t, any of us ; yet it 
will leak out somehow,” returned her ladyship philosophi- 
cally, rather annoyed with herself for having been betrayed 
into either surprise or horror even by an incident so start- 
ling. “ In the meantime, Sabakine, open the doors ; what 
will the other people think to find us shut up like so many 
conspirators ?” 

‘‘ In an opera bouffe^'* added Carlo, speaking for the 
first time since the duchess’s departure. 

Nina laughed, then put up her fan to hide the tears 
which rushed to her eyes. 

‘‘ Happy tears,” she whispered, as Violet pressed her 
hand in silent sympathy. There never was but one real 
cloud on my horizon — it is gone forever.” 

‘‘ A great deal to be thankful for,” Violet thought ; then 
that mournful line of the great master’s flashed through her 
mind : It is hard to look at happiness through other 
men’s eyes !” There came another reflection : If she had 
wronged Laurence Aylmer after all ! But no ; even though 
she could believe that the duchess had put him in an 
equivocal position without fault on his part, his words this 
night damned him with deeper treachery ! Only two even- 
ings before he had poured forth tender declarations to 
Mary Danvers, in the hope of securing her silence — to-night 
he had dared to tell her, Violet, that she alone reigned in 
his heart. 

I must go home,” she said, rising quickly. 

Oh, not yet !” urged Lady Harcourt, overhearing the 
words. 

“ And I too,” added Nina ; ‘‘ come. Carlo, I am so 
tired.” 

‘‘Civil to your hostess,” retorted her ladyship. “I 
believe I am tired too — there’s a return compliment.” 

As Nina passed the professor, she stopped short. 

“ I should like to kiss you !” cried she, laughing, yet 
ready to cry. 

“You may,” said he. 

“ I will,” she replied, and stood on tiptoe to do it, as he 
bent his grizzly head towards her with comic gravity. 

Now, do you know it really is not unpleasant,” said the 
professor, looking about in a meditative fashion, whereat 
they all laughed immoderately. 


380 


THE STORY TOLD, 


“ Impossible to decide, except by a personal trial,” said 
Sabakine. 

“Come home, small woman,” cried Carlo. “1 can’t 
fight a duel with every man in the room on your account.” 

The word duel carried Sabakine’s thoughts back to the 
subject he had tried to forget. He was ready now also to 
take his leave. 

The other guests came trooping out of the supper-room, 
and met the party on their way through the salons. 

“ Going already ?” cried somebody. 

“I provide board, but no beds,” said Lady Harcourt. 
“ Go home, everybody. I am a lone widow, with only ray 
reputation as a shield against a sinful world. You need not 
look wicked, Sabakine. I don’t want to lose ray character, 
bad as it is : you might discover my real one, and then I 
should be worse off than I am now.” 

“ You would always be the pearl of women, whatever 
role you assumed,” said the Russian, bowing over her 
extended fingers. 

“ My dear, I am forty years past compliments,” returned 
she, tapping his cheek with a hand white and shapely as in 
the days when she reigned supreme by her beauty ; nor had 
she lost her sovereignty even at sixty-five — her cleverness 
and wit took the place of youthful charms. 

“I shall come and see you to-morrow, Violet,” said 
Nina, as they descended the stairs. 

“ Who has seen Laurence Aylmer to-day ?” demanded 
Carlo. 

“ Yes, Nina, come to-morrow,” said Violet. 

“ To-morrow !” mentally repeated Sabakine, on whose 
arm Miss Cameron was leaning. “ God knows what that 
may bring her,” for the reticent, secretive Russian had ob- 
tained a clearer insight to Violet’s feelings than most of 
her acquaintances. 

Her carriage had come for her after taking Miss Bron- 
son home, and the professor declared that, as he brought 
her, he ought to return with her, meaning to take this op 
portunity of discovering if his fears that trouble had arisen 
between her and his favorite possessed any foundation. 
But Violet did not want to be alone with him — she was 
afraid he might speak of the man, so she jestingly quoted 
Lady Harcourt’s speech ; 


THE 8T0BT TOLD. 


881 


And I am not even anybody’s widow, poor lone spin- 
ster that I am !” she added. 

Would you like to be mine ?” asked Sabakine. 

Alas, crape is not becoming to me,” she replied ; and 
as their glances met, each perceived that for some reason 
the other found jesting difficult, so Sabakine naturally hur- 
ried Violet on, and put her in the carriage. 

‘‘At least, always remember that you can rank me 
among the truest of your friends,” he said, with sudden 
gravity. “ Good-night, Miss Cameron — sleep well.” 

“ Sans adleuy^ she answered ; “ we are certain to meet 
to-morrow.” 

Ah, what that morrow might bring her ! was his 
thought, as he got into his coupe and drove away. 

Clarice had been suffering from neuralgia in her face 
during the last two days, and Miss Cameron had bidden 
her go to bed early and get a thorough rest. Violet, deter- 
mined not to be beguiled into reverie, began to undress as 
soon as she entered her room, and had nearly finished the 
operation when she fancied that she heard a sound from 
Mary’s chamber. 

Very possibly the poor child, unable to sleep, was sitting 
in solitary communion with her troubled heart ; and in 
spite of her own sufferings, of the fact that the peculiar 
circumstances rendered it very hard that the task of consol- 
ing Mary should fall upon her, she was too un^selfish to 
think of seeking her pillow without having at least tried by 
affectionate caresses, to remind the girl that she was not 
deserted and uncared-for in her pain. 

Miss Cameron opened the door softly, so as not to dis- 
turb her cousin in case she slept, and looked into the cham- 
ber. Her fancy had not deceived her ; Mary sat by the win- 
dow, from which she had pushed back the shutter, and was 
gazing out at the starlit sky, so absorbed in her reverie 
that she did not notice Violet’s entrance. 

Miss Cameron would have marveled could she have 
known how quickly these solitary hours had passed with 
ithe young watcher. The words which the professor spoke 
to hei after dinner sent Mary away to her room with every 
pulse beating high in relief and hope. 

The professor was not a man to have said so much as he 
had without a warrant beyond his own fancies or intuitions 


882 


THE STORY TOLD, 


— notliing but assurances from Warner’s own lips would 
have induced him to speak. 

The last cloud was gone ; even the fear that a long 
dreary period of waiting, of misapprehension, might spread 
between them, and imbitter this separation, faded in its 
turn. 

She was no longer bound by the scruples which had 
rendered it impossible for her to make any sign — all the 
circumstances of the case were changed. She could answer 
his letter now without fear of appearing forward or un- 
maidenly ; nay, to pass it by unnoticed would be unfriendly 
— uncourteous even, since she owed him her thanks for the 
beautiful sketches he had so kindly remembered amid the 
hurry of preparations for his journey. > ^ 

She read over and over his farewell note — ^read too, 
divers little billets which on one pretext or another he had 
managed to write her. They all told the same story — she 
could decipher it clearly enough now. Of course it was 
natural and fitting that without delay she should forward 
a few kind, frank lines, telling him how sorry all his ac- 
quaintances were at his unexpected departure — how warm- 
ly they hoped soon to welcome him back — and he mirht 
believe that no one would be more glad to do so than ms 
sincere friend Mary Danvers. 

She must have spent two good hours meditating that 
epistle, brief as she proposed to make it, but she had it 
clearly arranged in her mind at last. She heard Violet re- 
turn, and meant to go to bed so quietly that her cousin 
would not suspect her late watch, but some new fancy car- 
ried her off on its sunny wings, and she forgot her resolve. 

‘‘ You bad child, to be up at this hour !” called Violet. 

Mary started, and said rather confusedly : 

“You — you have got back ! Is it so very late?” 

“ Past two o’clock,” returned Miss Cameron. 

“ It is you who ought to be in bed — how tired your 
voice sounds !” said Mary. 

“ Does it ? I believe I am tired,” replied Violet. 
“ What have you been doing all the evening ?” 

“Oh, reading, a part of the time,” Mary explained, and 
felt her cheeks grow hot. 

“What?” asked Violet, at once fulfilling Mary’s fear 
that the confession would place her in the difficulty of hav- 
ing to answer this question ; but, as usual, that over- 


THE STORY TOLD. 


383 


scrupulous conscience of hers would never j^ermit her to 
indulge in the slightest prevarication. 

‘‘ Only letters,” she said, and the slight quiver in her 
voice roused a new suspicion in Violet’s mind. Aylmer 
had been in the habit of secretly writing to her ; it w^as 
his letters the poor child had been torturing her wounded 
heart by perusing ; each tender word now becoming only 
a fresh confirmation of his falsity. 

Better that Mary should have every additional proof 
possible without delay of the man’s utter worthlessness. 
She was too sensible, too proud, to mourn long for so 
mean a deceiver, and so young, Violet again reflected with 
a bitter pang, that the loss of this affection need not make 
an arid des^^rt of her life, encumbered by the ruined altars 
of a shattered faith. 

‘‘ Mary,” she said quickly, “ you asked me the other 
night what I meant to do — you know what I mean — that 
night when ” 

‘‘ Yes, yes !” Mary interrupted, her heart giving a great 
throb of sympathy for her cousin. ‘‘ And — and you havo 
decided ?” 

I have decided,” Violet answered ; “ I have acted on 
my resolution.” 

Oh ! ’ Mary gasped. For the moment she could not 
add a syllable, afraid of betraying some consciousness 
which would lacerate Violet’s pride beyond the power of 
healing. 

must tell you,” Violet went on, sitting wearily down 
in a chair. ‘‘It is better you should know the whole.” 

She paused, and her listener wondered if it were possi- 
ble that she was so utterly beaten down and conquered 
that she must have sympathy in her woe. Mary rose sud- 
denly ; her first impulse was to fling her arras about Violet, 
and assure her that at least one heart would never fail her. 
But even yet she did not dare go so far ; she must wait till 
her cousin proved by absolute words that she was humbled 
enough, so that such protestations could comfort instead of 
wounding her. 

Mary crossed the room, seated herself on a stool, rest- 
ing her head on Violet’s knee, after a habit she had taken 
when they talked confidentially. 

“Tell me,” she said softly ; “ you know you can !” 

“ Yes,” Violet replied, smoothing her hair ; “ you arc 


384 


THE STORY TOLD, 


such a brave girl ; such a heart of gold ! Mary, I can’t 
soften the blow ; I must tell it all out. I have seen him 
to-night ” 

‘‘ Oh !” Mary gasped again. And it was of no use ? 
He had nothing to say ! How could he ! Yet I had hoped 
— yes, I had ” 

She could not finish. Violet put out her arm and drew . 
her closer — sorrow for the girl’s suffering — a strange bit- 
terness against fate that the task of reporting Aylmer’s 
despicable conduct should fall upon her of all people in the 
world, that consolation for the youthful heart he had in- 
jured should be her portion — hers, whose hurt was so much 
deeper, so much more fatal — making confusion in her mind, 
above which presently another thought dominated ; to 
pause now would be as cruel as for a surgeon to hesitate 
after his knife had probed his patient’s wound. 

There is no hope,” she said, none ! Mary, we must 
make up our minds to that. See, he could think of no other 
way of adding to the fullness of his infamy, so to-night he 
actually told me that he — he loved me !” 

“ Violet !” Mary exclaimed. 

“ Yes, I know,” Miss Cameron hurried on; “it seems 
incredible that his audacity could go so far, but it did ! 
There, you have heard the worst now ! He wanted my 
money, perhaps ; else believed that my vanity was so inor- 
dinate he could actually by a declaration of his love — his 
love ! — make me believe him blameless where that woman 
was concerned ; his treachery to you a mere amusement 
on his part, which he had not dreamed you would take 
seriously ” 

Mary interrupted by pushing away her arm and sitting 
upright, staring into her cousin’s face with wide-opened eyes. 

“ Treachery to me ?” she repeated. “ To me ?” 

“ Don’t be hurt at my knowing ; trust me, dear !” cried 
Violet, putting out her arms again, and folding the girl to 
her bosom, adding with a sudden burst of impatience against 
fate, life, all things : “ Oh, Mary, Mary, why couldn’t 
you have cared for the good man who loved you — at least 
have set one matter straight in this wicked world !” 

Mary struggled to free herself, exclaiming passionately : 
^‘Let me go, let me go !” As Violet released her, she rose 
and stood looking at her in wonder. “ What do you mean ?” 
she cried. “ Laurence Aylmer treacherous to me? Why, 


THE STOBY TOLD, 


385 


Violet, you are mad, or I am ! In heaven’s name, what do 
you mean ?” 

Did the child hope even yet to deny the secret which 
her broken words and agitation would have revealed with- 
out the other proofs which Violet possessed ? If so, she must 
humor her ; but how to go on and not betray her knowl- 
edge was a task so difficult that for a little she sat speech- 
less. 

‘‘You think I care for Mr. Aylmer?” demanded Mary, 
with that passionate wonder growing stronger in her voice. 
“ You believe that — that ” 

“ I am thankful that at least his arts did not succeed,” 
Violet said hurriedly, as she paused. “ I could not tell. 
You are very young. Many girls would have been touched 
■ — he could seem so earnest, so true !” 

“Violet, stop !” cried Mary. “You certainly will drive 
me out of my senses ! Answer my question — I insist ! 
You think Laurence Aylmer flirted with me?” 

“Yes. Ah, don’t be vexed, Mary; don’t think I am 
curious, intrusive. I love you, dear ! See, I will believe 
wffiat you tell me about your own feelings ” 

“ Oh, if you don’t stop I shall become a gibbering idiot !” 
burst in Mary, so excited by the sudden light thrown upon 
matters that she scarcely knew what she said, in her eager- 
ness to enlighten her cousin. “ He was like a brother to 
me — never a word or look that was not kindness itself — 
that, and nothing more !” 

“ Mary ! Mary !” 

“ I swear it, Violet ! Oh, do believe me !” 

“ I think one of us must be mad !” Violet exclaimed, so 
worn out that for the instant a kind of fretful exaspera- 
tion was uppermost in her bewildered faculties. 

“ Oh, we must make everything clear now,” returned 
Mary. “ I tell you I never thought of him except as a 
friend. He never dreamed of flirting with me.” 

“Mary, when you told me of his conduct after that 
woman went away ” 

“Because he did not want me to tell you,” interrupted 
Mary. “Great heavens, Violet, did you think I meant he 
made love to me ?” 

“ Yes. What else could I think ?” 

“What else? I must speak — even if you are angry, I 
must. I was furious on your account. I thought you 
17 


383 


THE STOUT TOLD. 


cared for him. There, it is all said now ! I thought you 
cared, and it may me so happy — and to find him dishonor- 
able ! Oh, Violet, Violet — mayn’t all the rest be some 
dreadful mistake too ?” 

Violet pressed her hands hard against her throbbing 
temples, and stared at her cousin. She could not credit her 
own ears. The girl must be trying to screen her secret at 
any cost, whether of truth or care for her listener’s delicacy 
and pride. 

‘‘Before you went down stairs that night when we were 
talking here, you were unhappy. You had seen him dur- 
ing the day. You cannot den}- that you were unhappy ” 

“I was, but not about him,” Mary desperately broke in 
upon the hesitating sentences. “ What did you mean when 
you wondered I couldn’t have cared for the good man who — 
who — loved me ? Nobody has made love to me, Violet.” 

“But you knew Gilbert Warner loved you — you must 
have known that !” cried Violet, still in the depths of be- 
wilderment. 

“ He never told me so,” faltered Mary, turning away 
her head. 

“But he told me !” 

Mary shrank a little farther off and put up one hand. 
The movement was a revelation to Violet. She sprang to 
her feet and seized her cousin’s shoulder. 

“ What have I done !” she cried. “ He thought you 
cared for Aylmer. He talked with me, and — and I ” 

“You told him I did!” groaned Mary. “Oh, you 
might have ruined my whole life ! No, no, 1 did not mean 
that ! Oh, Violet, Violet I” and she flung her arms about 
her cousin, so overpowered between joy at this fresh con- 
firmation of her own happiness and sympathy for Violet, 
that she burst into tears and sobbed uncontrollably for a 
few moments, which was probably the best thing she could 
have done on both their accounts. 

“ He loves you ! He loves you !” repeated Violet, 
straining her close to her heart. “ Oh, at least you will be 
happy ; I thank God for it, my darling — heartily. Oh, 
the thought of your suffering was more than I could 
bear !” 

“ How could you be so blind — but never mind me !” 
returned Mary, wiping away her tears. “ Sit down, Violet,” 
and sliG forced her cousin gently back into her chair, ^ 


THE STOET TOLD. 


387 


resuming her own place on the footstool. “Don’t let us 
judge Mr. Aylmer ! Oh ! the more I reflected, the more 
certain I felt that he was not to blame. I don’t try to 
put it all oa her just because she is a woman — but she is 
such a dreadful creature ! I have so often seen him avoid 
her. Oh, I behaved like a fool that night ! And he couldn’t 
have told — he is a man — he couldn’t betray her ! But I 
believe him when he said he loved you. Yes — I do ! The 
professor knew it ; he thought — oh, you won’t be vexed ?” 

Violet only answered by a pressure of her hand. 

“He thought you were unwilling to let yourself care 
about anybody — but that it would all end well — and oh, he 
is so fond of Aylmer ; and he is a man, and must know 
him as we cannot ! Violet, I tell you that woman did the 
whole ! Maybe she saw me, and thought at least she could 
ruin him in your esteem !” . . 

Violet rose again, and began to pace the room in terrible 
agitation, while her cousin hurried on with every argument 
she could think of in Laurence’s favor. 

“ I’ll tell you what she did to-night. Of course, the 
story is safe with you,” Violet said at length, and she re- 
lated the exposure which had befallen the duchess at the 
card-table. 

“Isn’t a woman like that capable of anything?” shud- 
dered Mary. “ Oh, Violet, don’t let us believe anything 
against Mr. Aylmer on her account — at least give him an 
opportunity to explain. No, perhaps he could not — ^but be- 
lieve him ! I shall,” she added, careful in her delicacy not 
to put her pleadings in a fashion which could render her 
sympathy troublesome. “ See, one does not renounce a 
friend without good reason ! We have always found him 
honorable and true ; we are bound to credit his word. 
Why, what is friendship worth that cannot stand any and 
every test !” 

“His very words,” answered Violet, pausing in her 
march. “ Oh, Mary, if I have wronged him, I think he 
never can forgive me ! I was so hard — I must have said 
horrible things to him.” 

“One pardons everything to a friend — to the person 
one loves,” amended Mary. “ Yes, I may speak out. I 
don’t pretend to know anything about your feelings, but I 
am certain he loves you ! Oh, if I had not been such an 


388 


STORY TOLL. 


idiot, you need have Seal’d nothing — at least I could have 
waited to be sure 

“ I was ready ^r a moment to exonerate him, after 
what happened about her cheating at cards,” said Violet. 

Then I remembered ” 

“ That you thought him treacherous to me. I under- 
stand. My dearest dear, he liked to talk to me because I 
talked about you ! Oh, Violet, it would be wicked to con- 
demn him unheard ! I shall tell the professor what hap- 
pened : you can’t stop me, I warn you ! Mr. Aylmer shall 
have every chance possible — and I for one will believe his 
word ! Oh, the more I have thought, the more I felt sure 
I was wrong ! He didn’t stir — it was she put her head — oh, 
I can’t go over it !” 

‘‘ No, no !” cried Violet, beginning to pace the room 
again. 

‘‘ I was quite beside myself any way, that night,” pur- 
sued Mary. “ I — I ” 

Ah, you were wondering why poor Gilbert had gone,” 
interrupted Violet, hurrying up to her, and embracing her 
again. ‘‘That was my fault too, blind simpleton ! Well, 
that is all clear enough now I Be happy — he loves you — 
he told me. so — do you hear ?” 

“I don’t want to hear till he is sensible enough to come 
and tell me himself,” said Mary, with a laugh and a sob. 
“ I am not thinking of myself ! Oh, Violet, try to believe 
in poor Laurence !” 

“My dear,” said Violet, with more composure, “ I shall 
not lose my friend if I can help it. Since I wronged him 
in one respect, I may easily have done so in another. The 
only question is, if I have, whether he can pardon me.” 

“ When he loves you !” 

“ Hush ! Laurence Aylmer was my friend, and he 
would never have been more,” said Violet. 

“ Oh, he is the only man I ever saw that seemed worthy 
of you !” cried Mary, impatiently. “ How could you help 
liking him ?” 

“ To marry him would have been very different from 
that,” replied Violet. “ A woman may have for friend a 
man six years younger than herself — not a husband ! At 
my age ” 

“ Your age ! When you look like a girl — anybody 


WEEN DAWN BROKE, 


389 


would give him five years more than you ! In ordinary 
cases I don’t say you are not right — but for you /” 

‘‘ My dear, there is no question of marriage — if I may 
keep my friend I shall be glad ! Go you to bed — good- 
night !” and with a kiss upon Mary’s cheek she went quickly 
out of the room. 


CHAPTER XLI. 


WHElSr DAWT^- BROKE. 



HE gray dawn broke over Florence — deepened 
and broadened — smote the casements of Lau- 
rence Aylmer’s chamber, and roused him from 
sleep. 

He had passed the greater portion of the 
night writing such letters as would be necessary in case he 
never returned from that expedition upon which he was to 
go forth in the early morning ; then he lay down and speed- 
ily fell into a deep slumber, some pleasant memory of Vio- 
let brightening his dreams. 

The premonition, so strong it became a certainty in his 
mind, that the encounter would end fatally for him, re- 
mained unshaken ; it had been his last conscious reflection 
before he slept — it was his first thought when he woke— 
solemn, awe-inspiring, but free from fear. 

He rose in obedience to the summons which the light 
brought as it quivered like some spirit-touch across his 
eyelids, remembering that it was the last time it would 
ever arouse his soul while clothed in those habiliments of 
clay. He performed his toilet slowly, leisurely — he had 
never in his life felt more calm. Even his agonized heart 
had ceased its struggles against the cruelty of fate ; the 
time for such weakness had passed ; it belonged to men 
who still had a part in this world and this world’s miseries 
— he had done with them. 

As he finished dressing, some one knocked at the door. 
He knew who it was — the man that took charge of his 
apartment, bringing the coffee he had ordered for this nour. 

“ Come in, Giacomo,” he said, and the old servant en- 


890 


WHEN DAWN BBOKE. 


tered with profuse Italian greetings, which not only com- 
prehended wishes that his padrone’s sleep had been pleas- 
ant, but that all the other nights of his life should bring 
rest as sweet, and this day and all coming days — and might 
they be many — filled with the choicest blessings that evet 
descended upon mortal. 

Often as he had heard the same utterances, they struck 
Aylmer oddly now. He smiled, spoke pleasantly to the 
old man, who was quite devoted to him, not more from the 
numerous acts of kindness he had received than from sub- 
mission to the powerful sovereignty which youth and hand- 
some looks possess over most minds. 

The signore starts early on his expedition,” Giacomo 
said, as he placed the tray upon the table. 

^‘Rather early,” Aylmer answered, and again he smiled. 

When the old man had gone, he drank his coffee, and 
looked about- to see that he had forgotten nothing. He 
took the letters he had written and laid them in his desk, 
where they would easily be found when wanted. He stood 
for a moment looking at the envelope which bore Violet 
Cameron’s name. 

^‘She will believe me when she reads this,” he thought. 
‘‘Men do not lie with death staring them in the face. She 
will believe me — ah, if only she never learns why I fought 
this man ! I think she never will. Sabakine promised for 
himself and Gherardi ; the Greek cannot remain here, so 
there is little danger.” 

He laid the letter beside the others, and closed the desk. 
The clock struck — the hour for his rendezvous with Saba- 
kine had arrived, it having been decided that it would bo 
better for the latter not to come in search of him. 

He took up his hat and walked to the door — paused to 
take one parting glance about the familiar room. Then he 
drew a photograph from his breast-pocket, and stood gaz- 
ing at it with his whole soul in his eyes, till a sudden rush 
of memories momentarily shook his composure, and he cried 
aloud in anguish — “ Violet, Violet !” 

In that portion of the gloomy old palace which she had 
chosen for her private apartments, Giulia da Rimini was 
already astir, arraying herself hurriedly — pale and stern 
enough to have represented Nemesis, save for the lurid 
gleam in her eyes and the triumphant smile on her mouth, 


WEEN DAWN BROKE, 


891 


which deprived the face of the passionless calm it should 
have worn to suit the comparison. 

Exposed — ruined— forced to go forth from Florence, 
where life suited her so well ; the duchess was furious at 
this necessity, not overcome by shame. And the entire 
catastrophe had been caused by Violet Cameron : she 
brought the old man — she set him to watch. 

Oh, amid all her disappointments — her cruel misfor- 
tunes, for which, during the long hours of the night, the 
duchess had so often cursed the saints whom perhaps a 
moment before she had begged to help her — at least one 
consolation awaited her — revenge — revenge upon that 
hauglity, insolent woman. 

Laurence Aylmer was to die this morning ; had Fate 
appeared in person to announce his doom, it could not be 
more certain. If Dimetri essayed the foul, underhand 
thrust, failure was impossible ; and he had sworn not to 
spare — he would keep his oath. Ay, she could trust him — 
he would have sacrificed a hecatomb of human creatures in 
his cruel remorselessness to win his guerdon ! Oh, if the 
wretch who had scorned her were only possessed of a score 
of lives, that she might have them all ! 

Revenge — revenge ! She was ahungered and athirst 
for the sight of blood. She meant to witness the duel ; 
Dimetri had no idea of her intention, but see it she would ; 
her vengeance would be deprived of half its savor if she 
could not watch her enemy’s last gasp. 

After that, she would by some means force her way into 
Violet Cameron’s presence, be the one to tell her that Ayl- 
mer was dead — dead for her whom he had loved. Since 
the knowledge could increase her misery, the creature 
should learn the full might of his devotion, extending even 
unto death — to death — the very repetition of the word was 
music ! 

Easy enough for the duchess to carry out her plan with- 
out fear ; no one would come to her rooms until she rang — 
for that matter, she was past caring even if her absence 
were discovered — and indeed, her personal attendants had 
been too long in her service to indulge surprise at any 
vagary on the part of their mistress. Her apartments com- 
municated with a private staircase which led directly down 
into the neglected stretch of shrubberies, more like a wood 
than a garden, having a door that gave on a narrow street 


892 


WHEN DAWN BROKE. 


at the back of the palace, and the keys were always in her 
own possession. 

To see the man die — watch his blood flow — gloat from 
her place of concealment over his latest groans — that was 
what she wanted. 

I know how exaggerated this description sounds ; but 
there are no words, however wild, which would be strong 
enough to picture the state of her mind — her demoniac 
hatred of Violet Cameron — her murderous wrath against 
the man who had disdained her charms after months of 
crafty patience and unwearied pursuit on her part. 

Ah, the world was not wide enough for him and her, 
so he must die — die ! She uttered the word aloud with the 
ferocity wherewith very possibly one of her own ances- 
tresses had cried it out when the fallen gladiator lay 
stretched on the arena sands, and his victor waited to hear 
the verdict, and the voices of vestals and noble matrons 
checked with fierce imprecations the sign which some 
emperor seized with sudden pity would have made. 

And amid the luxurious gloom of her chamber, Violet 
Cameron slept on after the break of day — after the man 
going forth to death for her sake, and the woman eager for 
his murder, were both astir. 

On leaving Mary she had sat down in her own room and 
lost herself in dreary meditation ; then some recollection 
of the girl warned her that at least she could aid where the 
future of two human beings was concerned, whatever befell 
her and the man who had given her his love — the man she 
had so deeply wronged. 

She wrote a long letter to Gilbert Warner — careful to 
give no hint which could compromise Mary — only telling 
him that she had discovered his and her own mistake, 
advising him frankly if his happiness were so vitally con- 
cerned as he had told her, to postpone his departure for 
Greece until he had taken time to return to Florence and 
learn his fate from Mary’s own lips. 

‘‘He will understand,” she thought; “he will come 
back at once — ah, they shall be happy !” 

She inclosed the letter to the professor, requesting him 
to forward it without delay, as she did not know Mr. War- 
ner’s address, and placed the missive where Clarice would 
find it when she entered in the morning. 

She went to bed then, and at length fell asleep. Sh« 


WHEN DAWN BROKE, 


8133 


dreamed that she was wandering through a beautiful gar- 
den with Laurence Aylmer. Every cloud had been swept 
aside — he knew that she loved him — no doubt or scruple left 
in her own mind — and this haunt where they roved as far 
removed from the common world as if some enchanted 
sphere had opened to admit them and their happiness. 

He left her side to pluck a flower she asked for — he did 
not return. She looked about — he had disappeared. By 
the tree where he had been standing she saw a serpent 
coiled upright, and as she stared in fascinated horror, she 
perceived that the monster wore a woman’s face — Giulia da 
Rimini’s — and was regarding her with that wicked smile 
she knew so well. 

She tried to fly, but could not — to call Aylmer’s name, 
but her lips refused to utter a sound. The serpent glided 
upright down the flowery paths, still looking back at her 
with Giulia’s smile, and she was forced to follow its lead. 

The way no longer led through a garden, but a dark 
morass filled with slimy water, where hideous creeping 
things clogged her feet, and human skulls grinned at her, 
and ghost-like figures circled about in a spectral dance ; 
and she had to go on — on — in the serpent’s wake — till sud- 
denly she heard a rush and whiz, and through the din, 
Aylmer’s voice calling her name in desperate agony : 

“ Violet, Violet 1” 

She woke — the vision so real that she could still hear 
those accents of mortal anguish. 

Whether by some strange chance, whether in obedience 
to some mysterious power held by our souls, I do not 
pretend to judge, but at the instant she woke, Laurence 
Aylmer, ready to leave his rooms, paused to look once more 
at her portrait, and as he regarded it a sudden spasm of 
despair at the thought that perhaps neither here nor here- 
after throughout the sweep of eternity should he ever look 
upon her face again, wrung from his lips a cry of which the 
tones that roused her from sleep were like an echo : 

“ Violet, Violet !” 

She sprang out of bed before she knew what she was 
doing, crossed the room to Mary’s door, in the blind, 
instinctive search for human companionship in her terrible 
fear. Then she got her senses back — retraced her steps — > 
reached the bed — lay down — for a little so faint and weak 
that she could not stir. 

17 * 


804 


WHEN DAWN BROKE. 


Gradually her strength returned. She tried to argue 
with herself. It was perfectly useless. She could not com- 
pose her mind. Could not lie there alone — she was afraid. 

She rose again, opened the shutters, and let the day 
stream into the chamber. She seated herself, holding her 
head between her hands. That voice echoed in her ears 
still ; when she shut her eyes, she beheld anew the hideous 
shape which had haunted her dream — the serpent wearing 
Giulia’s smile. 

She should certainly go mad if she did not get away 
from that close room — out into the free air. She sought 
hastily for garments to put on — so blind with pain that she 
groped about like a person trying to find his way through a 
heavy mist. Her fingers seemed turned to lead, and re- 
fused to do her bidding. Every movement she made caused 
a noise which she fancied might waken Mary, and now she 
shrank from companionship, ardently as she had longed for 
it a few moments since. 

Oh, she should never be ready — she almost thought she 
had wasted hours in the task — and each moment was pre- 
cious. She must go — go — something was awaiting her — 
some duty to be performed — what — where ? She knew 
not — but she must go ! 

She was dressed at length — had found a hat and cloak — 
stared at herself in the mirror, fretted by a dreadful idea 
that she was crazy, that if she were not very cautious some 
disorder in attire or manner would attract attention from 
the people she might meet, and she be seized, held fast, 
hindered from achieving her task — what task? Oh, this 
fancy was more insane than all the rest, but she could not 
subdue it — she must go forth and learn what errand fate 
had for her to do. 

As she opened the door and stepped out into the cor- 
ridor, a certain composure came over her : she could reflect 
— argue. She had been in a frenzy, but it had passed — 
only the effect of her terrible dream. At least she would 
keep on her way — the air would do her good. She should 
find Antonio stirring somewhere — he was always the first 
up in the bouse. 

She met him on the stairs : he stared in wonder at her 
appearance at such an hour — alarmed too by her pallor. 

“ Anconio,” she said, “ I am nearly frantic with nervous 
headache — I must go out.” 


WHEN DAWN BROKE, 


895 


Into the garden, mademoiselle 

“ No, no — it is too close ! Come with me — can we find 
a carriage ? I will drive to the Cascine, and walk there.” 

She had no thought of giving the direction till she heard 
the words on her lips. This utterance without conscious 
volition brought back that awful dread — some duty awaited 
her. Oh, she was mad, mad ! 

Antonio only bowed in response, and followed her down 
to the entrance-hall. The sleepy porter, in his shirt-sleeves, 
was just opening the outer doors : he caught sight of his 
mistress, and fled in search of a jacket, too much occupied 
with the fact of having been surprised by his lady in a garb 
so unorthodox, even to marvel what could have roused her 
at this unholy hour. But Antonio, always prudent, would 
leave no loophole for astonishment or possible gossip. 

^‘The signora has a headache,” he said softly, as the 
porter returned and began fumbling at the locks. ‘‘The 
doctor orders early walks when she suffers so — she is going 
out.” 

The doors swing back — Violet drew her vail over her 
face, and passed into the street. The cabs were just taking 
their station on the stand at the corner : Antonio helped 
her into a covered hack, mounted the box, and they drove 
away. 

The guardian seated at the carriage entrance of the Cas- 
cine had already seen two vehicles go by. Had the early 
hour roused any suspicion in his mind that it was his duty 
to inquire into the matter, or give information to the 
mounted patrol when those officials should make their tardy 
appearance, the doubt would have been dispelled by the 
fact that in this carriage, as well as the second of the for- 
mer ones, a lady sat. The guardian might have his own 
ideas that a fancy for such early driving on the part of two 
gentlemen and a brace of ladies was, to say the least, a 
singular coincidence, but of course no business of his. 

To avoid all possibility of attracting undue attention 
from this personage, it had been arranged that Sabakine 
and Aylmer, carrying the necessary weapons with them, 
should enter the Cascine by this route, while Gherardi and 
his principal, accompanied by the surgeon, made their way 
into the wood across the suspension bridge higher up, and 
beyond the view of the guard at the gates. 

When the cab reached the open space where the great 


396 


WHEN DAWN BROKE. 


cafe stands, Violet could no longer bear the restraint of in* 
action. She pulled down the glass, and ordered the coach* 
man to stop. 

Wait for me here,” she said to Antonio, as he assisted 
her to alight ; I will walk through the meadow. I shall 
not meet a creature so early as this.” 

Again Antonio bowed in acquiescence. He saw that she 
was suffering terribly from some cause. It might be physi- 
cal, as she had declared, though of that the shrewd Swiss 
had his doubts, and out of the profundity of his unerring 
tact forbore to annoy her even by the sound of his voice. 

Violet crossed the square, and entered the pretty green 
field which stretches for a considerable distance along the 
middle of the Cascine. To the right, the shining sweep of 
blue hills was visible above the trees ; at the left spread a 
wide, dense thicket, beyond which wound the road and the 
river, whereof she caught occasional glimpses as she passed 
paths cut through the dense shrubberies. 

She hurried on, consumed by the same wild impatience 
— the feeling that something called her, that she must attain 
some goal : each moment more important than hours, days 
of ordinary life — delay fraught with peril, though to whom 
she knew not — and utterly unable to combat the sensation 
by any argument. 

She reached the end of the meadow, and gained a nar- 
row alley so shut in among the trees and bushes that she 
seemed in the heart of a great forest. It was gloomy and 
dark here. Not a sound broke the stillness, not even the 
singing of an early bird. The hush became oppressive. 
She would make her way through the thicket, and come 
out on the bank of the Arno ; at least she should have 
broad daylight there, and the voice of the water to break 
this terrible silence. 

She turned aside into the bosquet, too impatient to wait 
till she arrived at one of the paths which crossed it. The 
bushes and long vines trailing down from the trees caught 
at her dress, reminding her of the horror of her dream. 
The ground grew damp and sodden, like the morass she 
had journeyed over in that fearful vision. Once a tiny 
snake started up just at her feet, and glided away with a 
sharp hiss into its covert. 

The horror of her nightmare came back with such force 
that she groaned aloud, for an instant frightened by her 


WHEN DAWN BROKE, 


397 


own voice> thinking it another’s. She plunged recklessly 
on. The brambles tore her hands and her garments. 
They seemed trying to hold her back. With every step 
the likeness to her journey in her dream grew stronger. 
Oh, if it lasted only a few minutes longer she should go 
wholly mad ! 

She was coming out. She caught glimpses of a little 
cleared space through the branches. At the same moment 
a sound struck her ear. O God, what was it ? The click 
of steel striking against steel ! 

She halted. It must bo a delusion. She was mad — 
mad ! Some living creature was near. She heard a quick, 
gasping breath. Before she could turn her head, she felt 
two arms close round her like an iron band. Then a hand 
forced both her hands behind her back, furious fingers 
clutched at her throat, dragged her head upward. Giulia 
da Bimini’s eyes were blazing into hers, that awful smile — 
oh, the exact smile the serpent had worn ! — parting her 
bloodless lips. 

For a few seconds Violet struggled wildly in her cap- 
tor’s hold, almost suffocated by the pressure upon her 
throat. 

Do you mean to murder me?” she gasped in a hoarse 
whisper, articulating with great difficulty even in that 
strangled tone. 

The duchess stooped to bring her mouth close to Vio- 
let’s ear, and hissed slowly out — oh, the very hiss of the 
serpent in her dream ! — 

Better than that. I mean you to see him killed ! Do 
you hear ? — to see him killed !” 

Completely unnerved before in mind and body, Violet 
grew so sick and faint that she was utterly powerless in the 
woman’s hold. At no time would she have been a match 
for her tormentor, but now she could not even struggle in 
that boa-like grasp ; and the relentless fingers clutched still 
tighter at her throat, rendering speech impossible. 

The woman dragged her on a few paces, pushed her 
head forward, and hissed again : 

‘^Look! look!” 

Through a red haze Violet saw two men standing at the 
farther end of the cleared space, a sword in the hand of 
each — flashing, waving, thrusting, like tongues of flame 
before her eyes, the click and ring of the metal smiting her 


WHEN DAWN BROKE, 


8'J8 

ears like a bell. She beheld the faces of the pair ; she was 
watching Laurence Aylmer and the Greek in their deadly 
contest. 

She could not have cried out now even if the pressure 
on her throat had relaxed sufficiently to permit ; her head 
sank back against the woman’s shoulder ; again she felt 
that burning breath fan her cheek ; again she heard that 
dreadful voice — oh, always the serpent’s hiss, though 
endowed with human speech ! — 

‘‘He loved you ; you shall see him die ! Wait only a 
little ; it will come. Dimetri has a secret that never fails ! 
This is my revenge ; he dies, you must live ; and you love 
him — you love him !” 

The purgatorial agony of her soul roused a spasm of 
physical vitality in Violet ; she fought fiercely to free her- 
self, to cry out — in vain. She was helpless as if the pres- 
ent torture of body and mind had been a part of that terri- 
ble dream. 

Always the flash of the swords blinding her eyes ; their 
scrape and rattle cutting her ears, and the duchess’s voice 
muttering maledictions to that accompaniment. 

“ Accursed ! I know what will hurt you most !” the 
w’oman chanted, staring eagerly out at the combat while 
she spoke. “ He loved you ! he told me so — do you hear, 
devil ? he loved you ! I’d let another woman think he 
loved me, but the truth will hurt you most : he loved you, 
he loved you !” 

Clash — scrape — rattle : the lightning-like thrusts given 
and parried before her eyes, and that voice in her ear. 

“ I tried to win him ; no use ! I got to hate him ; then 
he told me of his love for you — you ; that was his death- 
warrant ! You hear, you see, you suffer, and I am glad — 
glad ! Ah, at last ; no, not yet ! Oh, Dimetri, quick, 
quick ! I am tired of waiting !” 

And, as if in obedience to her whispered words, the 
Greek stepped back ; Aylmer advanced a pace, parried a 
feigned thrust, and on the instant his antagonist’s blade 
entered his chest, high up to the right. 

Aylmer wavered back and forth thrice, tottered slowly 
forward, and remained motionless for the briefest possible 
space of a second. Then rapidly body and limbs huddled 
together, and he lay in a heap on the ground, his left arm 


WHEN DAWN BROKE, 


899 


falling slightly outward, so that his head rested upon it, 
his face turned towards Violet as she stood. 

Dead !” she heard a voice exclaim ; it was Sabakine’s. 

^‘Dead !” the duchess echoed in her ear. “You killed 
him, remember ! He fought on your account ; he died be- 
lieving you Carlo’s mistress ! I have my revenge every 
way ; he is dead, and you are his murderess !” 

She released her hold with such suddenness that Violet 
fell backward, and rushed away through the wood. In an- 
other instant, almost as soon as Sabakine and the sui-goon 
could reach the prostrate form, they were startled by a 
rush like the wings of a great bird, and Violet Cameron 
swept between them, sank upon the earth, and lifted Ayl- 
mer’s head to her knees, muttering: “He is dead, and I 
killed him !” 

Not a word was spoken by the by-standers ; Sabakine 
made a warning sign to the surgeon, then knelt behind 
Violet, and put his arm about her waist to support her as 
she crouched holding that ghastly head. 

Even in his haste, the Greek, while putting on coat and 
hat, could not resist glancing at Violet’s face ; its rigid 
horror struck a chill even through his veins. He whispered 
a few syllables to Gherardi, who replied by a nod, and hur- 
ried off in accordance with the programme laid down in ad- 
vance for the surviv'or, because seconds as well as princi- 
pals had undervStood when tl)ey set out upon their morning’s 
work, that both men would not leave the place alive. 

The surgeon’ opened the siiirt, through which a small 
stream of blood oozed, staining Violet’s hands and garments 
as it fell. He performed his task in silence, waited a little, 
and said : “ He breathes still.” 

Nobody answered. 

Sabakine drew a dog-whistle from his pocket, and 
handed it to Gherardi, motioning him to blow it ; he obeyed, 
and in answer to the shrill summons, Sg,bakine’s carriage 
drove up ; two Russian servants whom he could trust seat- 
ed upon the box. 

Only when they were lifting the body did Violet speak. 

“To my house,” she said ; “to my house.” 

Sabakine was about to attempt some expostulation ; sbe 
raised herself and turned towards him ; the words died on 
his lips when he looked in her face. She followed as the 
men carried their burden to the carriage. 


400 


AFTER ALL, 


‘‘ Let me go with him ; I will go !” she said. 

They helped her in ; the surgeon got in too. They laid 
the body down as best they could. Once more Laurence’s 
head rested on Violet’s shoulder, as it had done during that 
first drive, when he had dared death for her sake. Even in 
this moment the recollection shot through her mind. Ah, 
this journey would have a different ending — the grave was 
its goal. 

‘‘ The swords !” whispered Gherardi. 

Sabakine picked them up, and hid them under a seat 
of the carriage. The vehicle drove off ; for a few seconds 
the two men left behind stood staring at each other with 
horrified eyes, then silently began the work which re- 
mained : covered the blood with sand — carefully removed 
every trace of footsteps — scattered twigs and leaves 
about — then hurried away, silent still. 

As they passed through the meadow, they met Antonio, 
who, disquieted by his mistress’s long absence, had sent the 
carriage up the road, and come in search of her. 

Miss Cameron has gone home in my carriage,” Saba- 
kine explained. There has been an accident. Mr. Ayl- 
mer is hurt. Not a word to anybody at present — you know 
how to hold your tongue. Where is the hack ?” 

Antonio pointed to the road. 

“ I saw the Duchess da Rimini and the Greek drive off 
together,” was all he said. 

My God !” the two men muttered simultaneously. 

Once the surgeon saw Violet’s lips move ; he thought 
she was trying to ask some question, and bent his head to 
listen, but she was elfly whispering : 

He is dead ! and I killed him !” 


CHAPTER XLII. 

AFTER ALL. 

OR three days Laurence Aylmer lay speechless, 
almost motionless, on his bed in the very room 
where so few months previous he had fought 
his way back to life : now, as then, Violet Cam- 
eron told herself over and over, brought face 
to face with death through her agency. 




AFTER ALL, 


401 


No matter that, nearly frantic as she was, reason re- 
fused to admit the possibility of considering her share in 
either catastrophe other than her misfortune ; the fact re- 
mained that she had been the cause of both. 

This time there was no hope ; even when the professor 
himself told her that life still lingered, that perhaps for 
several days no human power could predict as to the final 
results, her faculties stayed shut against the contemplation 
of any possible chance as completely as in that first moment 
of horror when she knelt by what she believed his dead 
body. 

No one — not Miss Bronson herself — dreamed of ques- ' 
tioning or expostulating, whatever Violet might do. 
Everybody about, beginning with the professor, obeyed her 
slightest wish unhesitatingly. He had warned the house- 
hold that he could not answer for the consequences if she 
were thwarted in any way. 

She looked like a dead woman, save for the maddened 
misery of her eyes, where life showed its strength in the 
unutterable agony they revealed. She scarcely left the 
bedside either day or night. Whenever she moved, 
Aylmer’s glance would follow her, while across the haze 
that dulled it crept an expression of trouble ; and though 
deaf to every other sound, her voice never failed to reach 
his ear ; beyond this, for hours and hours, he evinced 
scarcely any sign of vitality, save in the labored, irregular 
breathing — even that grew so faint sometimes they had to 
listen attentively to catch it. 

The professor explained that the wound had occasioned 
pneumonia — of course, much more perilous than if the 
inflammation of the lung had been produced by the 
ordinary cause, a cold or sudden chill. 

He said this, and he said no more ; but the other 
physician deemed it his duty to reply frankly to Violet’s 
questions : he could hold out no hope — humanly speaking, 
there was none. The professor did not chide his colleague, 
and this tacit concurrence in his verdict crushed the little 
group of attendant friends so utterly that they were power- 
less to try by word or look to comfort or encourage, 
Violet. 

Carlo and Nina were there ; Sabakine scarcely quitted 
the house, though there was little for anybody to do 
except watch — watch — count the hours, remembering that 


402 


AFTER ALL, 


each brought the end nearer. Sometimes there was one 
duty to perform ; when the sufferer’s pillows had to be 
raised a little and supported by some person seated on the 
bed. Violet was obliged to relinquish this task to the 
others. Aylmer lay always with his eyes fastened on her 
face ; usually they betrayed no sign of recognition, but if 
she stirred they wandered in troubled search of her 
presence. 

On the afternoon of the third day, Carlo and Sabakine 
went to Aylmer’s lodgings to pack up and bring away his 
possessions ; it would be easier now than later, when — when 
it was all over. 

They knew that the wildest rumors were afloat in Flor- 
ence, but the facts concerning the duel were not known. 
It was declared by many that Giulia da Rimini had tried to 
murder Aylmer — that he had shot himself in despair caused 
by losses at cards and his failure to secure Miss Cameron’s 
fortune — that the Greek had assassinated him and eloped 
with the duchess. Of course each tale was contradicted in 
turn, and some new one invented to take its place. 

Fortunately for Madame da Rimini, it became certain 
that the duke was very ill in Paris, so the letters she had 
written to several friends before her departure, announcing 
that she had been called to his bedside, received a share of 
credence; though that something very dreadful had hap- 
pened at Lady Harcourt’s house was already established, 
and so many tales in regard to borrowed moneys, defrauded 
tradesmen, and the like, speedily followed, that the duchess’s 
ostracism was almost as complete as if the truth had been 
openly declared. 

While Sabakine and the marchese were performing 
their mournful duty, with the aid of poor old Giacomo, 
they opened a writing-desk to lay in some papers, and found 
the letters Aylmer had written on the night before the duel. 
Among these epistles was one for the professor, and another 
which bore Miss Cameron’s name. 

There was no opportunity to place these letters in the 
professor’s hands until evening. A change had taken place 
in Aylmer’s condition — he was conscious — able to speak a 
little. The doctors said that by the next day he would be 
perfectly clear in his mind — able, indeed, to answer ques- 
tions concerning liis affairs, and transact any business, such 
as the making of a will, which might seem necessary. Sab- 


AFTER ALL, 


403 


akine had demanded if this would be the case, as he knew 
from his last conversation with Aylmer that he regretted 
not having leisure to alter the testament which he had ex- 
ecuted before leaving America. 

During the night, while Aylmer slept and Violet sat by 
his side, the professor, who shared her vigil, read the letter 
addressed to himself, and at length, after a good deal of re- 
flection, he handed Violet hers, telling her in a few words 
where it had been found. 

‘‘It was better to give it to you now, my dear,” he said, 
laying his hand softly on her head as he might have 
caressed a child, while his rugged features worked with 
emotion. “ He may make some allusion to its contents, 
whatever they are, and it would fret him if you failed 
to understand. I will sit by the bed while you read it. 
You need not be afraid — he is sound asleep, and will not 
wake for some time yet.” 

Violet moved to the other end of the room, and, sat 
down close to the shaded lamp which cast a faint glow 
through the chamber. She opened the letter ; it was like 
reading a message from the dead. .Once she glanced at the 
face upon the pillows — its death-like stillness only increased 
the feeling. 

“You will believe me when you read this — in thought, 
word and deed I have been true. I loved you from the first 
moment of our meeting; I shall go into eternity with that 
love in my soul, eternal as the soul itself. 

“ Never grieve for me ! If you love me I shall know it. 
Think of me as near you always. My darling, my one 
love, farewell !” 

Presently, looking across the dimness of the chamber, 
the professor saw Violet sink slowly upon her knees ; he 
bowed his head reverently, and turned his eyes away. 

Perhaps half an hour afterwards, Violet was roused 
from her wordless prayer by the professor’s whispering : 

“ He is waking, my child.” 

She started up and hastened towards the bed. Aylmer 
opened his eyes, looked eagerly about, and cried : 

“ Violet, Violet !” 

“ I am here,” she answered ; “Laurence, I am hore.” 

The professor rose and placed her gently in the chair, 
saying in her ear : 


404 


AFTER ALL. 


‘‘Soothe him — quiet him — whatever he asks or says. 
He will be perfectly clear in his mind now.” 

Then he stole softly away into the adjoining room, and 
left the pair together. 

“ Violet, Violet !” Aylmer repeated. 

“ Yes, Laurence,” she said, steadily. 

He opened his eyes and looked at her with a beautiful 
smile. 

“ I knew you were here,” he murmured ; “ even when I 
seemed quite unconscious, I always knew it.” 

“ Yes, Laurence,” she said again. 

“ My head is quite clear now,” he continued ; “ oh, I 
wanted so much to tell you awhile ago, but I could not. I 
thought I should have to go out of the world without even 
being able to speak your name again — Violet, my Violet ! 
Ah, I know you must understand — you must believe me 
now ! I wrote — I remember writing — they will give you 
my letter later.” 

“ I have read it,” she said. “ Do you hear — can you 
listen ?” 

He put out his hand feebly : she bent her forehead up- 
on it as it rested on the edge of the bed. 

“ I love you,” she said, in a slow, clear voice ; “ I have 
loved you all the time — can you believe me ?” 

•He gazed up into her face with eyes fairly superhuman 
in their tenderness. 

“Say it once more,” he whispered. 

“ I love you, Laurence — I love you !” 

He drew a long, deep breath, and his head, which he 
had partially lifted, sank back on the pillow — his eyes 
closed. 

“ Kiss me,” he murmured. 

She pressed her lips on his in a long, fervent caress. 
Then there was silence between them for a few moments ; 
when she saw that he was looking at her again, that trans- 
cendent peace and happiness glorifying his eyes still, she 
said softly : 

“ I only thought of you, Laurence — try to believe that. 

I was older than you — I feared to yield to the dictates of 
my heart — afraid it would be a wrong to you ! That was 
the only reason why I hesitated. For myself, I should 
have been prouder to hear you call me wife than to have 
been crowned queen of the whole world !” 


AFTER ALL. 


405 


it too late ?” he asked. Ah, yes — too late for this 

world — and yet — and yet ! Oh, my darling, if you could 1” 

He stretched out his hands feebly — clasped them about 
her neck, and her cheek rested on his bosom. 

“ Is it wrong to ask it?” he questioned. “Would it 
make it all hanier for you? Ah, love, I could go awaj^ not 
venturing to murmur, if only I might call you my wife 
once here. I could wait for you then — I could be patient.” 

“ Ask me anything,” she answered, in a voice that was 
like a strain of heavenly music, so free from agitation did 
it sound. In this moment her soul was lifted too far above 
earth for any human weakness to disturb it. “ Ask me 
anything — I will not refuse.” 

He uttered a low, inarticulate cry, so full of joy that it 
sounded like the utterance of some seraphic tongue already 
grown his own. 

“ My wife,” he said presently ; “ you will be my wife?” 

“ I thank you for the wish,” she murmured ; “ your 
wife, Laurence — your wife !” 

And again their lips met- — again that eloquent silence 
followed. Then she said suddenly : “ You have for- 
given ” 

“ Hush !” he interrupted ; “ between you and me, love, 
there could be nothing to forgive.” 

A wave from the sea of her mortal trouble which had 
been for a moment swept back, cast its bitter stretch across 
her soul. 

“ Oh, my heart, that I could doubt you !” she moaned. 

“Under all you never did!” he answered, “h^orget 
that — it was only a painful dream — we are awake now ! 
Oh, my darling, happiness has nothing to do with time ! 
Give me heaven here on my death-bed — my wife — my 
wife !” 

“ Your wife !” she echoed. 

“ To-morrow ? Oh, remember, every hour is precious !” 

“To-morrow,” she whispered ; “if the doctor consents, 
to-morrow.” 

“ Where is he ?” Aylmer asked. 

Violet called his name. The professor appeared at the 
summons, came up to the bed, and stood over them. 

“ This is my wife,” Aylmer said, drawing Violet’s head 
closer to his breast. “ You will not oppose a dying man — 
to-morrow, dear old friend ?” 


406 


AFTER ALL. 


“ To-morrow,” the professor responded, and would have 
added other words, but his voice broke. He hurried back 
into the adjoining chamber, and cried like a child amid its 
solitude. 

“ This is worth years and years of ordinary life, love,” 
Aylmer said. ‘‘ Hold my hand — lay your dear face on tlie 
pillow — let me sleep now.” 

He slept again. After a time the professor looked into 
the room ; worn out with fatigue, Violet slept too, her 
head resting close to her lover’s — even in slumber their 
faces turned towards one another. 

The next day came. Aylmer’s strength held out ; his 
mind remained as clear as at the most healthful moment of 
his life. 

When the little group of friends were collected that 
morning, waiting till the professor or Violet should appear 
to give them news of the past night, the door opened, and 
Violet entered. 

There was something so solemn, so holy in her face, 
that not one of those eager watchers could speak. The 
same thought struck each simultaneously — she had come 
to tell them there was no. Laurence Aylmer any longer in 
the world. But as she drew near, she paused and said 
calmly : 

‘‘We are to be married at noon— I came to tell you.” 

The reaction in their minds was so sudden that nobody 
was able to answer. They kissed her one after another, and 
let her go away in silence. When the door closed, the 
three women began to weep softly. Sabakine sat with his 
face hidden in his hands — Carlo was sobbing without any 
effort to hide his tears. 

Hoon came. They gathered in the room where the 
wounded man lay : a temporary altar and odorous flowers 
made it like a chapel. Then the professor led Violet in : 
she was dressed in white from head to foot ; so pale, so 
composed, so beautiful, that she looked rather like a spirit 
sent to summon the sufferer than an earthly bride. 

The ceremony was performed ; after a little they all 
stole out and left the husband and wife together. 

“ I can bear even the parting now,” Laurence whispered ; 
“ God has been so good to me that I dare not murmur.” 

The day passed — evening drew on. 

A change came over Aylmer ; his temporary strength 




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